"Health Care Reform is Good for Our Economy"

[RedEarth]

December 04, 2008
"Health Care Reform is Good for Our Economy"
Jonathan Gruber says health care reform should be part of a recovery package:

Medicine for the Job Market, by Jonathan Gruber, Commentary, NY Times: A central feature of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign was an aggressive plan to expand health insurance coverage by subsidizing low-income Americans and preventing discrimination against the ill. ... would require major new spending in the near term — perhaps $100 billion a year or more.

Given the present need to address the economic crisis, many people say the government cannot afford a big investment in health care... But this represents a false choice, because health care reform is good for our economy.

As the country slips into what is possibly the worst downturn since the Depression, nearly all experts agree that Washington should stimulate demand with new spending. And one of the most effective ways to spend would be to give states money to enroll more people in Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Plan. This would free up state money for rebuilding roads and bridges and other public works projects — spending that could create jobs.

Health care reform can be an engine of job growth in other ways, too. Most proposals call for investments in health information technology, including the computerization of patient medical records. ... The hope is that computerized recordkeeping ... would improve the quality of patient care and perhaps also lower medical costs. More immediately, it would create jobs in the technology sector. After all, somebody would need to develop the computer systems and operate them for thousands of American health care providers.

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/12/health-care-ref.html

[bemildred]

1. It's worth remembering that HMOs were sold as "reform" a while back.

Just because they call it reform, that doesn't mean it's good, or it will work, or that it's even a change of direction. Medicare is the best health care deal out there, what we need is Medicare for all, which should have been done 40 years ago. We'd all be better off if Congress had not dicked around back then, except for maybe a few HMO CEOs.

[RedEarth]

2. I too would like to see Medicare for all...single payer

I posted this article since this economist pointed out the economic benefits of having what he termed "universal health insurance". Whether or not he is implying single payer, which I would like to see, I don't know. What I like is the fact people like Jonathan Gruber are pushing the idea that health care reform should be done during these tough economic times since it can help the economy. Needless to say, many of us already know that, but many on the right and in the media will promote the idea that it's "too" expensive to attempt to do any major reform(or single payer, or whatever name a person wants to called it) in health care. The fact that Gruber is pushing the idea and the fact that his commentary is in the NYT is in my opinion positive.

....


"Universal health insurance coverage would also address economic problems that existed before this downturn began... In our current system, people who leave or lose their jobs often must go without insurance for months or years, and this discourages people from moving to positions where they could be more productive. Most reform proposals call for ... coverage ... for people who are self-employed or out of work, increasing their mobility.

If this coverage focuses on disease prevention and wellness, it could also improve the health, and thereby the productivity, of the workforce.

In the long term, the greatest fiscal threat facing this nation is the growth in the costs of health care. ... Experts have yet to figure out how to restrain cost increases without sacrificing the quality of care that Americans demand. Yet cost control would be easier in an environment of universal coverage. Nations like the Netherlands and Switzerland, which have achieved universal coverage within a private insurance structure, control costs better than we do. ...

These are challenging times. ... But rather than sit back and lick our wounds, we must move toward healing them. Fundamental health care reform that features universal insurance coverage is an important place to start."


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/opinion/04gruber.html?_r=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink