Health Care Costs are Hard to Manage

CBO's Doug Elmendorf writes,

In an issue brief released today, CBO reviewed the outcomes of 10 major demonstrations--6 in the first category and 4 in the second--that have been evaluated by independent researchers. CBO finds that most programs tested in those demonstrations have not reduced federal spending on Medicare.

Of course, if you have just a few successes, and you can replicate and scale them, then the fact that you have many failures along the way does not matter. That is why you do experiments. Meanwhile, my concern is that many health care reformers assume that their ideas will save costs, without waiting for testing to see if this is true.

Comments and Sharing