Health Care Reform: The Savings Issue

Finally. The Congressional Budget Office has released its analysis of the current version of reform as it stands in the Senate. The verdict is good news for the reform camp: the Senate bill, the one put together by Senator Baucus, would save the Federal Deficit approximately $81 billion over the next decade. That effectively ends any discussion that reform will ramp up government spending. The CBO had previously reported that costs would rise rapidly, a finding that was seized upon by conservatives and other opponents of reform. The mantra of ‘big government’ was an easy label to pin on that earlier analysis, and it added fuel to the fire of all those ridiculous ‘town hall’ meetings we had to hear about throughout August.

This news reinforces the momentum that has now begun to grow behind the reform movement. Talk within the Senate has switched dramatically from things such as whether there will be a public option to what form such an option will take. In the House they have gone even further: they are now debating who will foot the bill. The fact that reform does not appear to cripple the budget, and will cut back on the private costs of health care as well, can only speed up the shift now evident in the legislative process.

Public opinion too has shifted. The more recent polls suggest that the public is more supportive of reform than ever before. The high water mark of opposition was during that flurry of inflamed ‘debate’. It seems as if the confusion that caused has abated and the public, in a more considered atmosphere, has swung back in favor of change.

The key components of reform are now taking shape: mandated employer coverage; some form of public option; no denial of service; and mandatory consumer purchase of insurance all appear to be likely parts of the final legislation. If that is the case then Obama will have accomplished his largest policy target within his first year.

That will annoy the Republicans, but they have only themselves to blame. They have failed completely to present a positive alternative. Their simple minded negative criticism has done nothing to educate or inform us of possible non-government approaches towards cost control in health care. All they have to offer is the same ‘deregulate and set the market free’ prescription that failed us in the banking industry. I find it odd that they cannot, seemingly, find more modern and less tired policy options that would retain a right wing ideological appeal and solve the problem. They appear reduced to denying that there is a problem, which given the pressure that health care costs impose on the average family – they are the largest single cause of personal bankruptcy in the country, above even real estate problems – is surely a losing position.

Further: the Senate debate exposed some of the Republicans as being wildly out of touch with modern lifestyles. The fact that Senator Kyl could argue with a straight face that maternity care has no place in a comprehensive public option because ‘men don’t need it’ is demonstrative of the gap that has opened up between the GOP leadership and the realities of life most modern American families face.

And that’s too bad: we need a balanced debate and sensible policy options to choose from. Right now we have a one dimensional discussion in which one side is reduced to an almost child like or schoolyard negativity. That not healthy.

Still as a supporter of reform today’s CBO report is welcome news.

Reform looks like it will happen.

That’s good news for us all.