I have real misgivings about this health bill. What of the future? Crippling shortages of skilled professionals figure to be the natural consequence of truncating their pay.

If prescription prices are capped at a small multiple of the cost of production, where are the funds to come from with which to develop the next generation of antibiotics? Evolution takes no vacations; the bacteria of tomorrow will have made some progress at surviving the antibiotics of today. It’s an unremitting arms race. We cannot rest on our laurels.

If the patient never has to pay any actual cash out of pocket, what is to inhibit hypochondriacs from monopolizing the time of doctors who must see them again, and again, and again?

If the patient never has to cover some fraction of the cost of expensive procedures, won’t the expensive procedures be rationed by some sort of triage, instead? It won’t likely be rationed by lottery. The stimulus funds went largely to Democratic districts. What reason is there to expect that tomorrow’s rationing of scarce goods won’t be a matter of having a friendly (democrat) congress-critter who can get you in with a doctor? At best, Republican districts would find their medical infrastructures starved of funds, unable to provide proper care or any advanced care. More likely, all regions would find their institutions starved of funds. The proposed scale of spending just doesn’t match up with the proposed means of funding it.