Final Thoughts on Health Care Reform

Now that Health Care Reform has finally been passed, I am wreathing in curiosity for what the Obama Administration will solve next.

Will it be immigration reform? Bank Reform? A fix to the No Child Left Behind Act? Will they save Social Security?

I wonder if they feel confused. Obama and the Democrats were voted in by people who wanted to see them create and enforce common sense solutions. That's what they did. They developed a health care overhaul with bipartisan ideas and yet half the country doesn't like it and about a third is now in a state of paranoid fear that the nation will fall apart.

They think this new health care system is dangerous and might swell up like Medicare and Social Security did. I can't blame them for being worried.

However, their fears are not subject to reality. This system will not increase government spending by an extraordinary amount. It will cost the United States Government about $150 billion a year. Next year's budget is expected to be approximately $3,700 billion. This means it will increase government spending by 4%.

Even the worst case scenario--health care growing from 17% to 25% of our economy--would only increase government spending by 2% as a result of Obama's Health Care plan.

Still, healthcare is not solved and the health care debate is not over. Medicare will need saving again one day and if we face a further shortage of doctors, the effects of supply and demand will cause their pay to skyrocket, and the costs of healthcare will go with it.

But for the time being, the Obama Healthcare Bill is a success. It removes $60 billion of waste and fraud from Medicare and Medicaid annually and it brings down the cost of healthcare, according to the Congressional Budget Office, by 13-19%. It creates healthcare exchanges that promotes capitalistic competition, enforces many common sense rules, and subsidizes (helps pay for) health insurance for people who have difficulty affording it. It does not affect small businesses, except for the law allowing small businesses to pool health insurance to bring costs down.

This bill will lower costs, so people can spend their money to grow other parts of the economy. And this bill saves the last capitalist health care system on the planet. I think that's what's important.