Quick Comment: Health Care and The Budget

OK. As we all slide into the silly season of budget fudging and name calling, can we all just agree that we will not arrive at a successful solution to our fiscal problems without recognizing the biggest long term cause of the mess. Health care costs. Yes, tax cuts created big holes in the budget. Yes, the crisis made that hole bigger. Military expenditure is way out of line with our ability to sustain it. But they can be contained or resolved realtievly easily. Health care is another matter all together. We have no current mechanism, other than the recent reform, to bend the trajectory of health care costs back from the danger zone. Compared with health care, Social Security is a small and easily fixed problem. Obama has, at last, said so. Meanwhile, as the debate last year clearly showed, ideological fault lines threaten to freeze discussion about controlling health care costs. This cannot continue.

Health care costs and fiscal soundness are inextricably linked.

Now carry on.