Finally a decisive vote on health care reform

Is it possible? We may finally get a decisive vote on health care reform in the House this week and the President will be able to sign the bill before he leaves on his trip to Indonesia and Australia. What if the House approval of the Senate bill fails? As financial advisors caution, past performance doesn't necessarily equate with similar future results. But, the Commonwealth Fund published a blog in December 2009 The Costs of Failure: Economic Consequences of Failure to Enact Nixon, Carter, and Clinton Health Reforms. They reviewed the history of rising health care costs since 1960 and projected what the costs would have been if previous health care reform efforts had been successful.

If the reforms proposed by Nixon had been enacted and had reduced costs by just 1.5% annually, our expenditures now would be 10.7% of our Gross Domestic Product instead of the current 17.7% or a savings of $1 trillion annually. Similar projections are made for the reforms proposed by Carter and Clinton in which cases our annual expenses would now be 11.5% and 14.2% of GDP respectively.

We are now closer than at any time in the past to beginning the process of serious health care reform. If we fail this time does anyone doubt that costs will continue to grow and millions more will be added to the rolls of the uninsured in the coming decades? Let there be no illusions about what passage of the President's proposal will mean; this is just the beginning of a decade or longer very difficult challenge of "bending the cost curve" that will necessitate significant structural changes in how we provide health care affecting many stakeholders.

But begin we must.