Busting Health-Care Costs, Not Budgets

What is this - yet another "let-us-hate-government-with-its-evil-taxes" type of article? We ought to be ashamed.The recently increased pressure on state budgets due to rising Medicaid costs has had a positive effect on the debate over health-care costs. Even the author concedes: "The pressure [Waxman] put on state budgets has brought the nation's governors to the table to talk about fashioning a new national health-care plan in hopes of cutting costs. Once there, they found businessmen, labor union leaders, and physicians ready to talk for the same reason. That ... has been Waxman's goal all along." Hooray for Representative Waxman! The haughty health-care industry, with its annual double-digit inflation, despite the condition of the country, has been gouging us as long as anyone can remember. What will bring it under control? Caps on costs initiated through the grass-roots efforts of state governments and wage earners who have tired of escalating heath-insurance expenditures. John D. McBride, Davenport, Iowa

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