“The County” – a hospital to which emergency patients with no money and no insurance are shipped. Most of us remember when The County was always the provider of last resort.

At what level do we say that the rate of coverage under a universal program is “close enough”? For Medicare Part A, we’ve already answered that question. Covering 95 percent of those over age 65 is “close enough,” leaving 1.6 million seniors out of the Part A program (primarily hospital care).

In perhaps the greatest irony of the reform process, President Obama has scheduled a bipartisan health care summit in which the Democrats will submit a right-wing proposal similar to that crafted by conservative economist Mark Pauly and his market-oriented colleagues. The Republicans will offer nominal proposals that would provide no significant benefit in correcting the problems that we face with our health care system.

For purposes of these ballpark calculations, revenues are assumed to be premiums paid for purchase of the private plans (ignoring investment returns on reserves). The revenues are split into 1) a fund to be used to pay for health care benefits, and 2) funds to operate the business entity that is selling insurance services. The latter portion includes all administrative expenses and other costs of running their businesses, plus profits.

Many experts touting the Congressional reform proposals have singled out the insurance exchange concept as being one of the most important avenues of reforming the private health insurance market. MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber was involved in designing the Massachusetts exchange and has been an independent-expert-on-the-dole for the administration and Congress as they move forward with the concept of private insurance exchanges.

Sen. Russell Feingold seems to be saying what we’ve been saying all along. If the Senate bill fails, then we’ll “hear more about (single-payer).” If this bill passes but doesn’t work (and it won’t), then “we have to go back and look at single-payer.”

WellPoint’s California subsidiary, Anthem Blue Cross, has provoked appropriate outrage in response to its announcement of premium increases as high as 39 percent. Why would they risk creating this potential public relations nightmare when Congress is considering major increases in regulatory oversight of their industry?

It is a relief to know that Premier Danny Williams (Newfoundland and Labrador) is doing well after his heart surgery here in the United States. This news is a refreshing and reassuring breather after having been inundated with the callous releases from right-wing extremists celebrating Premier Williams’ medical misfortune, used to both denigrate the Canadian health care system, and tout the quality of the U.S. system (for some).

Today’s message is not meant to be an “I told you so,” even if I did tell you. The point of the message is that health policy science has advanced to a level that the consequences of policies in various reform proposals are fully predictable. “Well, let’s try this and see how it goes” is no longer acceptable, especially for our entire $2.5 trillion health care industry.

Same story every year. Health care spending continues to increase at rates well in excess of inflation, and health care continues to represent an increasing percentage of our gross domestic product.