The recently released draft proposal from the federal debt commission offers some useful ideas for reducing runaway federal spending on health care. Even a committee comprising two-thirds Democrats is suggesting tort reform to curb wasteful malpractice lawsuits (Obamacare would do nothing about these), which the CBO says would save $64 billion in federal spending by the end of 2020 – in addition to what it would save Americans as a whole in lowered health costs, as doctors wouldn't feel so compelled to practice wasteful defensive medicine. And the committee's suggestion to increase nominal Medicaid co-pays would save an estimated $15 billion – and probably more so, as beneficiaries would then have at least some additional skin in the game.

But the commission has missed, or perhaps willingly overlooked, a couple of far more inviting targets: $747 billion, currently slated for exchange subsidies, that would be saved by repealing Obamacare; and $540 billion, currently slated for a drastic expansion of Medicaid and CHIP, that likewise would be saved by repealing Obamacare. That would provide savings of a cool $1.287 trillion through 2020 alone (according to CBO projections), which would come with a bonus prize of increased liberty.

Read more:http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/serious-proposals-reduce-debt_516906.html