Eugene Steuerle writes in HealthAffairs that while much has been made of the financial cost of the Affordable Care Act, the cost of the act from expanding coverage for  those under 65 is a relatively small part of America’s huge healthcare-cost issue.

He writes:  “If we add in growth in tax subsidies for health insurance, then Obamacare programs for those younger than 65, including both Medicaid expansion and new health-insurance subsidies in the marketplace, entail only about 8 percent of the federal government’s cost for major health programs and 12 percent of the projected increase in annual cost within a decade. And even those additional Obamacare costs are offset partly by cuts established in the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

“By contrast, growth in Medicare makes up half or more of all federal major health program spending and of the projected increases; the tax break for employer-provided insurance and the Medicaid program for those eligible before Obamacare each also entail significantly higher costs than does Obamacare.”

America still has not faced what needs to be done to improve its mediocre medical outcomes while cutting costs in what is by far on a per-capita basis the world’s most expensive healthcare, including the planet’s highest paid physicians and healthcare administrators and the  most pricey medications.

It’s a system that still rewards waste and duplicati0n.