Absent Reform, Federal Spending on Health Care (Medicare and Medicaid) is Projected to Rise at an Unsustainable Rate
Like housing and tax policy, U.S. health care policy is badly in need of reform. The United States spends more on health care than any nation in the world.1 Within a few decades, the escalating costs of health care could prove catastrophic for the economy as a whole. Every year, tens of millions of Americans go without health insurance, mainly because they can’t afford it or because they lose a job and with it their insurance coverage. Some people discover that their insurance company has suddenly decided to stop covering them.
There is wide-scale agreement that reform is necessary, yet in 2009 the politics of health care stirred up so much overheated emotion that it looked like reform was doomed. As this report goes to print, reform appears likely, but the details are still uncertain. Will everyone be covered? Will the reform package be enough to hold down the rising cost of care to a sustainable level?
In emergency medicine, the “golden hour” refers to a brief window of opportunity when doctors have the best chance to save a trauma patient’s life. Right now may be our country’s golden hour to achieve meaningful health care reform. Major reform was last attempted 16 years ago during the Clinton administration. The political fallout was so bruising that no one has tried again until now. If the current effort fails to go far enough, it could mean the patient will live but the longterm prognosis remains deeply disturbing.
In This Section
- Health Care: the Profound Impact of Inequality
- Universal Health Care: the Basic Elements
- Why U.S. Health Care Costs So Much
- Ruined by the Status Quo
- Politics and the History of Health Care Reform
Footnotes
- David Carey, Bradley Herring, and Patrick Lenain (February 6, 2009), Health Reform in the United States, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. [back]
Issues
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