Health Care Study says reforms, cost savings won't reduce quality like lying Republicans claim.

The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, is doing everything a new study says is required to rein in health care costs. The study does not suggest waiting for “free market” solutions.

Two important points from the study, before listing a few details:

1. AP: The U.S. health care system squanders $750 billion a year roughly 30 cents of every medical dollar through unneeded care, byzantine paperwork, fraud and other waste, the influential Institute of Medicine said Thursday in a report that ties directly into the presidential campaign.

2. The report's main message for government is to accelerate payment reforms, said panel chair Dr. Mark Smith. "The good news is that the very common notion that quality will suffer if less money is spent is simply not true. That should reassure people that the conversation about controlling costs is not necessarily about reducing quality."

The report unintentionally obliterates the criticism by Romney and lyin’ Ryan. Those two can continue to believe the free market will bring about better outcomes, competition and lower prices, but the fact is, health care is not a consumer product. Most people don’t have time to shop around, or know where to “shop.” When is cheap heart surgery a great deal, or a really dangerous and risky choice?

But the counter-intuitive finding from the report is that deep cuts are possible without rationing, and a leaner system may even produce better quality. The report suggested there's plenty of room for lawmakers to find a path.

This study reaffirms the Affordable Care Acts many provisions. I loved the studies comparison to industries we’re familiar with (now if only teabillies could read):

If banking worked like health care, ATM transactions would take days, the report said. If home building were like health care, carpenters, electricians and plumbers would work from different blueprints and hardly talk to each other. If shopping were like health care, prices would not be posted and could vary widely within the same store, depending on who was paying. If airline travel were like health care, individual pilots would be free to design their own preflight safety checks or not perform one at all.

How much is $750 billion? The one-year estimate of health care waste is equal to more than ten years of Medicare cuts in Obama's health care law. It's more than the Pentagon budget. It's more than enough to care for the uninsured.