COST: Fired Up and Ready to Fix Things

Our New America health policy colleagues Elizabeth Carpenter and Sarah Axeen in an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer build on their recent paper on The Cost of Doing Nothing (report here, blog summary here) and explain why we can't recover from the economic crash if we allow people to get crushed by health costs.

Some of the Philly piece naturally focuses on Pennsylvania, where health costs have been a factor in the loss of 207,000 manufacturing jobs since 2001. But their overall message applies to the nation as a whole.

In the face of historic job losses and the worst financial crisis in 80 years, why did health care remain a salient issue in the final weeks of a tough campaign? The answer is simple: When people are worried about their jobs, they are nervous about the security of their health coverage. And when people are trying to figure out how they are going to pay their bills, they are concerned about being able to afford medical care.

Health-care costs are growing faster than wages, making health insurance more and more unaffordable for more and more U.S. families every day. Recently released research by the New America Foundation indicates that half of the families in Pennsylvania will have to spend more than 50 percent of their household income on health insurance by 2016 if something isn't done.

 

 

 

 

As their policy paper concluded, doing nothing is actually more expensive than fixing the problem. They noted that during the campaign, President-elect Barack Obama asked his huge crowds, "Are you fired up? Are you ready to go?" When it comes to our health care crisis, voters have answered: We are and we must.