A new study that was released November 27th by Jonathan Gruber, MIT economist and “the favorite economist of the White House”, finds that the Senate health care bill will leave patients better off than under current law. Specifically, Gruber concludes that under the Senate bill, patients will pay lower premiums than under current law while at the same time receiving greater coverage.

Of course, this claim sounds wonderful and is already being touted by some as evidence that true health reform is being pursued. Unfortunately, this analysis suffers the same credibility problem as many other claims made by proponents of health care reform.

First, Gruber was the main architect for the Massachusetts reform in 2006 – a “reform” that current proposals have relied on heavily for support. In reality though, Massachusetts health care spending has been anything but controlled, rising at an even faster rate than the rest of the country only three years after enacting reform.

Second, this increase in spending in Massachusetts is very likely to be mimicked nationally, as the goal was always to increase coverage and deal with cost later:

“The Massachusetts law explicity did not take on the fundamental determinants of medical cost growth—and this is, in my mind, the genius of the approach.” – letter published in The New Republic, March 22, 2009

“If everybody’s going to be covered, some people will have to get used to the idea of paying more than they think they can.” – National Public Radio, April 24, 2009

Third, as recently as November 12, 2009 Gruber emphasized the need to pass a bill at all costs:

“You can’t do cost control before coverage.”

“We don’t know if we’ll really bend the cost curve. But if we do this and we don’t do anything, we still go bankrupt in 100 years. We don’t lose much.”

In short, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. To claim that we will extend insurance coverage to 31 million individuals through government subsidies and spend less money in the process is simply not realistic. In fact, it’s downright insulting.