Why Deficit Hawks Should Support Health Care Reform

With the national debt at $12 trillion and climbing, it's readily apparent that the federal government will have to make tough choices in the years to come.  There will need to be changes made in Social Security and Medicare in order to ensure the programs remain solvent for future generations of Americans.

There's also something that can be done today.  The Senate health care bill soon to be voted on by the House will extend health coverage to 31 million Americans, rein in insurance company abuses, and reduce the deficit by $118 BILLION.

In a new analysis released today, the Congressional Budget Office wrote:

CBO and JCT now estimate that, on balance, the direct spending and revenue effects of enacting H.R. 3590 as passed by the Senate would yield a net reduction in federal deficits of $118 billion over the 2010-2019 period.

Also today, 41 top economists wrote a letter to President Obama and members of Congress declaring health care reform critical to containing health care costs.

The economists wrote:

America has higher per-capita medical spending than any other industrial democracy. Health care spending, now $2.6 trillion, is projected to reach $4.5 trillion by 2019. Without effective reform of the way we pay for health care, growth of health care spending will create unsustainable fiscal burdens, eat into cash compensation, perpetuate waste, and undermine the prospects for universal access to needed care.

The health care reforms passed by the House and Senate - with recent modifications proposed by President Obama - include serious measures that will slow the growth of health care spending. Putting the brakes on health care spending will take multiple measures, and we must start now. Democratic and Republican experts have proposed many different approaches to "bending the cost curve."

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Taken together, these measures are a serious, multi-faceted initiative to improve the quality and efficiency of American medical care, rein in the fastest growing portion of government and private budgets and provide a valuable platform for future cost-control efforts. If this nation is committed to cost containment and deficit reduction we must pass health care reform. If this legislation fails, the chances of reducing the growth of health care spending in the future will be greatly reduced.

Our nation is simply spending too much money on health care.  Unless members of Congress want to see growing health care costs eat up even greater portions of the budgets of the federal government and American families, they must vote to reform our health care system.