"What we do know is the present system is not working well," Buffett said. "Health care costs have galloped up as a percentage of GDP (gross domestic product), and we haven't covered the population the way a rich country should.
"It is time for us to try to make an improvement."
"The perfect is always the enemy of the good," he said, "and the unknown scares people."
But tackling health care reform now is "the right thing for the country."
"This bill is not going to be perfect," Buffett said. "There will be some unintended consequences and some surprises."
But it's time to start, he said, and then modify the legislation as needed.
***
[3/1/10 on CNBC, posted 3/2/10]
QUICK: We've covered ground looking at the economy and where things are headed. We've talked a little bit about Coca-Cola. What we have not touched on yet is where the government stands right now. We--you mentioned briefly about the jobs report, but there are so many other bills that are moving through that have captured the people's attention, including the health care bill and...
BUFFETT: Yeah. Or not moving through.
QUICK: Or not moving through. Nancy Pelosi said at this point she does not think that there's going to be any bipartisan support. What do you think about the idea of taking this into reconciliation and cramming it through?
BUFFETT: Well, the health--the health situation, what we have now is untenable over time. I mean, it--call what we're doing now plan A, and plan A has taken us from 5 percent of GDP to 17 or close to 17 percent of GDP. And that kind of a cost compared to the rest of the world is really a--it's like a tapeworm eating, you know, at our economic body. Every--everything we produce for export, everything we compete with that comes imported in this country, everything is bearing that cost, and it's a cost that the rest of the world isn't bearing. And the--tops around the world, you find 10 percent of GDP. We have fewer doctors than many--we have two and a half--a little over two and a half doctors per thousand, much of the world has well over three doctors. We have 11 nurses per thousand, much of the world has far more nurses per thousand. We have three beds per thousand, hospital beds per thousand, much of the world has six or seven beds per thousand. We have higher infant mortality than most places, or many places. We have higher--we have shorter overall mortality. So we have a health system that, in terms of costs, is really out of control. And if you take this line and you project what has been happening into the future, we will get less and less competitive. So we need something else. Unfortunately, we came up with a bill that really doesn't attack the cost situation that much. And we have to have a fundamental change. We have to have something that will end the constant increase in medical costs as a percentage of GDP.
QUICK: Then are you in favor of scrapping this and going back to start over?
BUFFETT: I would be--if I were President Obama, I would just show this chart of what's been happening and say this is the tapeworm that's eating at American competitiveness. And I would say that one way or another, we're going to attack costs, costs, costs, just like they talk about jobs, jobs, jobs in the...(unintelligible). It's cost, cost, cost on this side. That's a tough job. I mean, we're spending maybe $2.3 trillion on health care in the United States, and every one of those dollars is going to somebody and they're going to yell if that dollar becomes 90 cents or 80 cents. So it take--but I would--I would try to get a unified effort, say this is a national emergency to do something about this. We need the Republicans, we need the Democrats. We're going to cut off all the kinds of things like the 800,000 special people in Florida or the Cornhusker kickback, as they called it, or the Louisiana Purchase, and we're going to--we're going to get rid of the nonsense. We're just going to focus on costs and we're not going to dream up 2,000 pages of other things. And I would say, as president, `I'm going to come back to you with something that's going to do something about this, because we have to do it.'
QUICK: Just focus on cost, or focus on cost while insuring more people? Those are two different problems.
BUFFETT: Well, yeah, universality, I--no, I believe in insuring more people. But I don't believe in insuring more people till you attack the cost aspect of this. And there is no reason for us to be spending 17 percent or thereabouts when all--many other developed countries are spending, we'll say, 9 or 10. They have more beds, they have more nurses, they have more doctors, they even have more consultations by far. We have about four consultations per person in the United States with doctor interaction per year. Other countries have far more than that. I mean, we spend a lot of money on equipment here. I mean, if you want to get the very best, I mean, if you want to spend a million dollars to prolong your life another three months, you know, in some coma or something, you can probably do it better here in the United States than any place else. But we need a fundamental reform. And, you know, I admire people for tackling it, because it's so tough politically. But I would--I would like to see them really get the job done.
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