During the presidential campaign, it was all systems go on health reform. It was part of President Barack Obama's winning platform: We need change now.
The excitement of victory swept the promises along. First, Congress promised a comprehensive health reform bill by early June, then late July, and now it has crept back to Oct. 1.
The committees are down in the trenches, starting the monumental work of drafting a bill that can pass. On a good day, that would be difficult. But a new Congressional Budget Office report has just made it worse, projecting a price tag of $1 trillion to $1.6 trillion for each of the Democrat reform bills currently on the table.
Democrats aren’t discouraged. According to ABC News, Obama said the CBO report doesn’t take into account the projected cost savings expected in healthcare IT investments and a promotion of evidence-based care.
Republicans are vindicated. The CBO report is proof that the Democrats’ plan for reform will lead the nation to financial ruin.
Despite the numbers and the partisan bickering, Obama, Democrats, Republicans, nonprofit organizations, think tanks and bipartisan groups all agree: Doing nothing about healthcare won't suffice. U.S. healthcare is already at 17 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, and the care it purchases isn't always quality care.
Someone – or some group of someones – is going to have to go out on a limb here.
This reminds me of the scene in the 1987 movie “Moonstruck.” The plumber Cosmo Castorini tells some potential customers, “There are three kinds of pipe. There’s aluminum, which is garbage. There’s bronze, which is pretty good, unless something goes wrong. And something always goes wrong. Then there’s copper, which is the only pipe I use. It costs money. It costs money because it saves money.”
President Obama said in a June 24 ABC report that Americans are wary of change because “the devil they know is better than the devil they don’t know.”
That may prove true, until you have a preexisting condition and can’t find coverage.
Here’s a question: Do we even need a devil at all?