Albert Einstein defined, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  Let us take this definition, which I doubt many would disagree with, and apply it to history and the current debate over health care reform.

Medicare was founded in 1965 with the passage of the Social Security Act with its ceremonial first customer being none other than President Harry S. Truman.  This was the beginning of the Great Single-Payer Health Care System Experiment (my term).  From inception through 1980, costs had doubled every 4 years, and the outlays in 2007 totaled 16% of the federal budget to the tune of $440 Billion.  This amount of spending is second only to Social Security itself and Defense.

While one could argue over the priority of health care spending versus defense spending, the more concerning issue is cost control.  In 1967, the House Ways and Means committee predicted the entire cost of the Medicare program would be $12 Billion by 1990 when the actual spending was $110 Billion, almost 10 times the original estimation.

If history is any indication, the roughly $1 Trillion spending bill being discussed in congress can be expected to cost much more than is advertised.  Are we not insane to expect that our government can do the same thing for millions more Americans and NOT let spending get out of control, again?