Actually your not far off the mark.
VA doctors often can not prescribe non generic drugs because of the costs. The doctors have to get authorization in many cases and show that they first tried other less expensive drugs first without results even though the more expensive one may be better for the patient.
There is no such thing as a free lunch and there is no way you can provide more service to more people at a lower cost. Costs can include other things besides money, like time (think waiting) and health problems that take longer to figure out as tests that may be given now by your doctor are not given until others prove negative.
All that wasted money on all the needless tests do come back once in a while with an unlikely cause.
Some of the money goes towards R&D and improving the quality. What happens to improvements to medicine if the ability to make a profit is gone.
Lastly, When was the last time the CBO was able to get a budget prediction right? I mean even by 10 or 15% within the mark?
I know many don't agree with me but I don't think the people that run the post office (running large deficit), Amtrak (running large deficit), and of course who can forget what a bang up job they are doing keeping tuition costs down in government run colleges from sea to sea. Of course we would be forgetting the one area where we already have government run health care. medicare, that great program where people are already getting a feel for the "sorry we are not taking any more medicare clients"
Its going to be interesting when the baby boomers go into full speed retirement wanting all that social security money and medicare and find out there is not enough money to pay for it. Of course they will also be the largest voting block. What is going to happen to America when there is not enough people to pay for all the things that the boomers want and no one is stupid enough to loan us more money around 2020?
It is not hard to imagine in 2020 that 15-20%+ of the budget going towards interest payments to service the debt load. Or home loans at 12% or more. Gas at $15 a gallon since the dollar was devalued or that standard of livings are going down compared to those in Asia. 60% effective income tax (fed, state, local) on income alone before you add in property or sales tax. How do I explain this to my kids?
I am not saying mad max or anything like that but I think we are going to have some serious rude shocks to peoples understanding of what type of quality of life we may end up having. This credit card bill our uncle Sam seems to be running up will have to get paid at some point even if no one in DC knows what a due date is
Quote from shortie:
The bill means "leftist radicals will now be making your health care decisions, instead of your doctor,' warned Limbaugh.
"... and it will be much harder to get the drugs that make you feel real good" - he added off the record.