Kansas Health

The left is right

[David Broder, "Fixing health care should be top priority," The Lawrence Journal-World, 7 April 2005.]

While those on the left tend to be associated with the polar opposite of consumer driven health care - universal coverage and socialized medicine - some advocates are correct in their analysis of the need to address health care prior to social security or other concerns:

[I]n a long span of years covering public affairs, I have come to value the contributions of the naysayers, those brave spirits who -- right or wrong -- challenge the conventional wisdom.

I had a visit from two of them this week, Dean Baker and David Rosnick of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research. Their skepticism attaches to the notion -- propounded by the Bush White House and accepted by most of the inhabitants of the political and journalism worlds -- that the Social Security system is in crisis.

Between 1980 and 2004, the growth in health care costs exceeded that of per capita gross domestic product by 12.6 percent. In just the next 10 years, that gap is projected to grow another 7.2 percent.

By either the CBO's or the Social Security trustees' estimates, the hit to the economy from runaway health care costs is far greater than the potential damage of a Social Security tax increase. The ratios range from four times as great to 18 times as great, depending on which estimates one chooses.

Baker and Rosnick suggest another way of making the same point. The tax increase needed to keep Social Security solvent for 75 years is of the same size as the likely growth in health care costs (above per capita gross domestic product) in the next 48 months.

The implication is obvious. "Politicians and commentators who claim to be concerned about the living standards of future generations of workers seem to be misdirecting their energy by focusing on the comparatively minor problem of Social Security," Baker and Rosnick write. "Clearly the inefficiency of the U.S. health care system poses a far larger and more immediate danger to the living standards of our children and grandchildren."

The next step is to agree on how to correct the problems in health care.

[Devon Herrick, "Health Savings Accounts: The Future Of Health Care For Kansans," The Flint Hills Center, 14 February 2005.]