That having been said there's also no way to stem the skyrocketing costs of health care solely by concentrating on reducing demand, either. Reduce the number of procedures performed and, in order to maintain revenue levels, health care providers will raise their prices for the procedures that are still performed.

You've got to address both the supply and the demand sides of the equation. And such a complete overhaul of the system will require a crisis. Experts are saying that such a crisis is three to five years away.

The study is not worthless even with the issue of spouses employers providing coverage. That would lower the uptake rate, but that doesn't mean this is worthless in that it at least provides an upper bound. Having an upper bound is better than being completely ignorant.

I remember dicussing this with somebody, and saying that half the reason government programs cost so much, is because of the built in bureaucracy that comes with the programs.

I figure a cheaper method would be for the government to just contract with existing insurer's, but doing the voucher thing, and letting people choose their insurer is probably even better, since it would encourage competition in the private insurance industry, and eliminate most of the bureacracy.

Federal employess who did not take FEHBP with after tax dollars had no more reason to take it with pre-tax dollars since the reason they opted out in the first place was so they did not pay for essentially the same doctors visits or medical care twice.

The doctor gets the same 120 dollars per office visit whether it comes from the husbands insurer or from the wifes insurer. So both of them paying for health insurance coverage, subsidized or not, just doesn't make sense.