House Health Care Reform

I have just finished reading the section by section summary of the House reform bill released yesterday.

Here is my summary:

Plenty of insurance reform (leading to higher costs for those currently insured)
A tremendous amount of new regulation
Scores of new programs, studies, pilots, etc on everything from wellness to obesity and much more all under HHS
Many improvements to Medicare and Medicaid
Higher costs for employers including prohibitions on changes in retiree coverage, extension of benefits to adult children and more
Control of just about everything including the adequacy of provider networks
Gradual elimination of the Part D donut hole

In summary this is a massive piece of legislation that will require even more massive regulation and years to implement. In the final analysis it will be virtually impossible to know what worked or didn’t work and certainly with all the additional work left to the Secretary of HHS and to CMS it’s fair to say we will never know the true costs (or savings).