Town Hall debate: It is simply unsustainable and must be reined in by rationing

The growth in spending is simply unsustainable. It has doubled in 15 years. We spend 40 percent more than other countries spend and get a poorer outcome. Millions are not properly covered.

Our politicians are right to say it is time to rein in this runaway expense that is delivering inequitable service to the nation’s poorest, an obvious act of discrimination. In Nevada alone it takes up half of the state’s budget.

We must accept the fact that the best way to control escalating expenses is to take control of excessive costs and to ration services using a proper cost-benefit model so that those with the highest quality-life-years are given the highest level of care.

Some of the CEO level executives at these institutions are being paid in excess of $400,000 a year. That money could be better used to deliver basic services.

Many of the people being served at our current level of care simply are not providing an adequate return of public good — return on investment, if you will — proportionate to the expenses incurred. We need end of service counseling, so that these people and their families can evaluate whether they should continue to be hooked in the system or provided a palliative alternative.

Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer has written, “President Obama has said plainly that America’s … system is broken. It is, he has said, by far the most significant driver of America’s long-term debt and deficits. It is hard to see how the nation as a whole can remain competitive if in 26 years we are spending nearly a third of what we earn on (this), while other industrialized nations are spending far less but achieving … outcomes as good as, or better than, ours.”

It is time to fix our socialized system of education (Did you really think I was talking about health care?) before it breaks our banks and dumbs us down in a competitive world. No Child Left Behind concentrates on those who cannot achieve at an adequate level. We’d get a better return on our investment if we concentrated on those who can excel and give them a boost, instead of ignoring them and letting them fend for themselves.

So, why is all the debate about health care? No one is questioning the runaway costs of education, of government programs, of unfunded government pension liabilities, of Social Security and other entitlements. Nope, we are hell bent on creating another one.