Nathan Newman at TPM Cafe has a good post on health care costs. His most topical point is that the Bush health care tax package, which is ostensibly intended to reduce health care costs through financial incentives for health care consumers, is hopelessly misguided and beyond repair. Most health care spending occurs among a small minority of spenders who receive very expensive, intensive care that they likely see as not being optional. Incentives one way or the other probably won't make much of a difference. And people getting expensive treatment probably don't have time to shop around for the best deal. We're most likely dealing with sick, frightened people who don't have much time to spare. And would they recognize a deal when they saw one? Probably only a highly trained physician would- what non physicians know enough about health care to make that call? So giving health care consumers the incentive to shop around will probably not increase competition among health care providers. No savings there, either. Increasing deductibles would most likely not impact the cost of the treatment that very sick people get. Informed, streamlined management of the health care delivery system that puts the patient before profits might, though. After all, it's worked in every other industrialized country- all of which don't really have long-term health care spending problems like we do.