Is Health Care Weighing Down the U.S. Economy?

By: Barb Lutz, CIS Senior Compliance Manager
Barbaralutz@cis-partners.com

President Barack Obama has only been in office for a little over two months and has already started his push for Congress to overhaul the U.S. Health Care system in 2009. He was quoted as saying, “The cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough.”1 In fact, he even places part of the increasing budget deficit on expanding medical expenses. One of the biggest health care issues the nation is facing is that as the U.S. population ages, the costs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will increase. CMS (The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) recently reported that government spending on Medicare and Medicaid will reach $721 billion in 2009. These programs cover around 100 million people. Another major issue is that there are approximately 46 million people without health coverage because it is unaffordable.

I found these statistics to be pretty disturbing and was anxious to see what steps President Obama would be taking to correct surging health care costs. So far, he has not given exact specifics on what steps he will take to correct this issue, but has made some recommendations to Congress for a plan to slow down the increasing costs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid by identifying fraud in the program. He even expects Congress to reduce funding for underperforming programs that are not yielding the desired responses. President Obama wants to put into place changes that will help Americans afford coverage, and even expand government health programs to cover more uninsured Americans. This may even include the possibility of expanding Medicare coverage to Americans as young as 55. Obama also wants to modernize and create efficiencies in the health care system by moving health records into a single digital format.

I also read that President Obama is holding five Regional White House Forums on Health Care Reform. The first was held on March 12th in Dearborn, Michigan. Although President Obama did not attend, 400 people did attend the two-hour forum, including CEOs of health care systems and insurance companies; representatives of labor unions, workers, retirees, nursing professors, as well as other stakeholders in the health care overhaul debate. The overriding message from the forum was that “widespread agreement on the need for health care reform was made clear by comment after comment.”2 Other discussions included the need to accentuate preventive, wellness and primary care and to find a way to better utilize health information technology. This forum was one of five scheduled throughout the country.

It will be very interesting to see how President Obama’s recommendations on overhauling U.S. health care and the future forums play out in the next few months. Expect to see upcoming blogs on this subject as I continue to follow the upcoming Health Care Forums, and President Obama’s progress on this tough issue facing our nation.

Sources:
1. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601202&sid=aKlHsp88FGh0&refer=healthcare
2. http://kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=57470