Steps In The Right Direction

The Senate Health Care Bill Represents A Serious Effort To Cut Costs While Expanding Coverage

by Ronald Brownstein
National Journal

It's easy to understand why so many Americans are uneasy about the cost of health care reform. But the debate over reform's fiscal impact needs to consider both sides of the ledger -- not just its costs but also its potential for savings.

With the federal deficit already ballooning, the legislation the Senate is now debating would commit Washington to spending almost $200 billion annually by 2019 to guarantee nearly universal coverage. That's real money.

But many health reform experts agree that the bill formulated by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also makes real efforts to offset those federal costs and to "bend the curve" on overall medical spending. In a Nov. 17 letter to President Obama, 23 prominent economists identified four principles of fiscally-responsible health care reform. Reid's bill, inevitably, contains compromises and concessions that deviate from the economists' blueprint. But building on the cost-control proposals devised earlier by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., the legislation substantially meets each of the letter's four tests

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