Meanwhile the CBO thinks that it has found the magic cure for our high health care costs. David M. Herzenhorn and Robert Pear report in today's Times:

“In the legislation that has been reported, we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount,” Mr. Elmendorf said. “And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs.”

One step that would contribute in a large way to offsetting costs would be to tax some employer-provided health benefits, which are currently excluded from taxable income, Mr. Elmendorf said.

Which is basically a rehash of the "skin in the game" argument. Consumers, in this argument, choose to assemble a package of health care services based on price and their own exhaustive knowledge of medicine. When their employers or others pay for insurance that demands very low cost shares, consumers are like kids in a candy shop with no supervision.

Well, while I'm in your office doc, can I just get you to give me a colonoscopy. My Insurance will pay.

We tax the money that consumers use to buy socially useful goods like big screen TVs and SUVs, we should also tax the money that consumers use to pay for health insurance. This would lower overall spending by business and government on health care.

Forced to consider costs patients would naturally educate themselves. They would shop around for doctors with low fees and look for the best value in hospital care. They would go on the web to get reliable information on medical treatments and use this knowledge to design the most cost effective plan of care.

Well, the fact is that we have been experimenting with this idea for about 20 years now. As more and more Americans have lost their health insurance or been forced into plans that require them to have large amounts of "skin in the game" our health care costs have been rising faster than ever. Remember how long it takes to become a doctor?

Which leads Wonks Anonymous to conclude that any analysis of health policy from the CBO is simple garbage.