The debate over data, charts and graphs and what they "prove" continues. As I posted below, a study and analysis by Jeffrey Anderson for Pacific Research Institute demonstrated that costs per person for the gov't programs have increase faster than private care. Obama defenders/single-payer proponents and lefties in general can't abide such a conclusion and so rolled out some of their own charts and graphs. Use the link to the Weekly Standard blog expaining why Anderson's analysis is correct and the critics, as presented by Ezra Klein, are wrong:
"If you look at all of private care, and don't just cherry-pick a select part of it, the picture is quite clear. As my study for the Pacific Research Institute shows, since 1970, the costs of Medicare and Medicaid have each risen one-third more, per patient, than the combined costs of all other health care in America -- the vast majority of which is purchased privately. Medicaid's costs have risen 35 percent more, and Medicare's 34 percent more, per patient, than the combined costs of all other health care nationwide.
"The costs of the two flagship government-run health-care programs have also outpaced all other nationwide health costs since 1980, 1990, and, in Medicare’s case, 2000. (Medicaid’s costs haven’t risen much since 2000, as billions of dollars have been shifted from Medicaid to SCHIP.)
"Moreover, my study is quite generous to Medicare and Medicaid in a variety of ways...Despite all of these advantages, on a per-patient basis, for every $3 that all other U.S. health-care costs have increased since 1970, Medicare's and Medicaid's costs have each risen more than $4. Klein and Co. can only claim otherwise by completely ignoring a major chunk of the private market."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/07/costs_of_medicaremedicaid_have_1.asp#more
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