Experimenting with your health

Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf throws some doubt on the many provisions of the new health care law.

Calling the bill health care "reform" is misleading. For example, it was sold as a way to reduce costs.

Elmendorf, who is Congress’ chief accountant, said the Democrats’ health care bill will reduce unnecessary spending on health care by insured people -- but only to a "very limited extent" over the next decade. One of the main complaints about the health care law, even as it was being written, is that it doesn’t do enough to control costs.

And if you thought it would make the whole process more predictable:

Elmendorf revealed that some of ObamaCare's so-called reforms may not be reforms at all. Analyzing the many provisions that are supposed to make health care more efficient and less expensive, Elmendorf said that there was little evidence any of them would actually work -- leading CBO to view their potential with skepticism.

“The legislation set up a number of experiments in delivery and payment systems to induce providers to offer higher-quality and lower-cost care,” he said. “However, for a number of reasons, it is unclear how successful the experiments will be.

A grand experiment with our health.