Dr. John Geyman, Professor Emeritus of Family Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle writes in The Huffington Post that the new Patient Protection and Affordable Act of 2010 (PPACA) won’t do enough to tame exploding healthcare costs. His essay breaks down the flaws in the complicated law in bullet points that are easy to understand. For example PPACA has:

• No price controls. Wall Street has already factored in rapid expansion of markets for drugs, medical devices and other services in a system of expanded access.

• No bulk purchasing. The PPACA has prohibited the government from negotiating the prices of prescription drugs and retains a ban on importation of drugs from Canada and other countries.

• Lack of control over perverse incentives that drive increased volume of services. These in turn are driven by retention of fee-for-service (FFS) reimbursement that encourages physicians and other providers to offer more services than are medically appropriate or necessary.

• No effective mechanism to rein in marginal or ineffective technologies. Coverage policies for new drugs and medical devices are still lax and not subject to rigorous evidence-based criteria for either efficacy or cost-effectiveness.

Click here to read the rest of Dr. Geyman’s article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-geyman/hijacked-stolen-health-ca_b_638630.html

Source: www.californiaoncecare.org

Short, he hits the nail on the head. In fact we shouldn't even call it Health Care Reform. For me, HCR died the day the public option was dropped. As long as the government doesn't have an active role in health care like Canada, European countries and even Hong Kong, the costs for health care will continue to rise. The special deals in this bill don't serve anyone than the health care lobby and big pharma companies.