The Catastrophic Option

By ROSS DOUTHAT
NYT

Three major problems plague American health care. The cost of premiums is eating up an ever larger share of take-home pay. The cost of our public health care programs is eating up an ever larger share of the federal budget. And millions of people who need insurance are priced out of the market.

Now that Max Baucus’s version of health care legislation has been blessed, at least provisionally, by the hands of Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, it’s increasingly likely that Congress will pass reforms that address the third problem, while making the first two problems somewhat worse.

If a Baucus-esque bill passes into law, we should expect a significant decline in the number of Americans without health insurance. But for Americans who have employer-based insurance — still the lion’s share of the working-age population — premiums could climb more swiftly than ever.

(More here.)