On the recordJanuary 18, 2011
We are having debates about health care because Americans are nervous about changing something so important to their families, and that, of course, makes politicians nervous about reform. This skepticism is understandable. Attempting to adjust policies and programs that comprise now 17 percent of our economy, the biggest driver of the Federal deficit that literally touches every American family, poses daunting challenges. Yet, as people begin the analysis, the appropriate comparison is not some idealized, magical state but the comparison to the path we are on, which everybody agrees is unsustainable. Medical costs, left unchecked, will literally bankrupt the country. The Department of Defense will spend more on health care this year than China uses to run its entire military operation for 7 months. Every objective, independent expert acknowledges and laments the fact that the United States is the world's health care underachiever. We pay more for health care than our major allies and competitors in Europe, Japan, and Canada, but our people get sick more often; they die sooner, and unlike any other country, people are bankrupted by medical costs--about 2,000 people per day. All the while, we have a record number of uninsured Americans--now over 50 million.
