60 Minutes Misleads About Obamacare

One segment on last night's "60 Minutes" pissed me off.  It began with a promo/teaser:  "This man says American can't afford Obamacare!"  The man, Steven Brill, just published America's Bitter Pill, a well-researched and documented book about the unconscionably high prices for medical treatment brought to us by the for-profit Big Hospital/Big Pharma/Big Insurance industries. Last night, Brill said Obamacare is great but he sees no way we'll be able to pay for it.

Lesley Stahl and her producers managed to frame this in a way to suggest that Brill is a staunch opponent of the ACA and believes it's a terrible idea, and that's just not true.  His book is all about the exorbitant prices charged by the medical industry, not Obamacare, but CBS made it seem like he was blaming the ACA and saying Obamacare somehow causes high prices, and that's just not true either.   Medical costs were out of whack before law, and they still are now.   His point was that he wished the health care law had gone after Big Med profiteering, but Obamacare "does nothing" about this.

Which is essentially true.  The Affordable Care Act expands coverage, but doesn't do much to address the cost issue.  (The point has been made countless times in the last four years, but only now does 60 Minutes hop on it like some "aha!" epiphany.  It's hardly news.)

Should the ACA address costs?  Hell, yes!  Why doesn't it?   Because conservative Republicans in Congress wouldn't allow the cost side to enter into discussions in any meaningful way.  They were far more concerned with protecting the bottom lines of their corporate benefactors and lobbyists than about what actual people might face.

Eventually, we will of necessity join the rest of world's advanced nations in providing single-payer, universal coverage with government-negotiated pricing.  That's how you make it affordable for everyone.  It would have been nice indeed if Obamacare had moved us in that direction.

One of Mr. Brill's final comments last night was sad but true:  America will address the problem of crazy-high health care costs only when it becomes a genuine crisis.  At that point, finally, the lobbyists and all their money and all their bullshit won't matter.

But until then, there's money to be made.

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Here's a link to an old post about Steven Brill and this same issue of health care costs. 
http://bustergammons.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-real-problem-with-american-health.html