A sick country’s cure

Last week, Tom Daschle, former South Dakota senator, spoke before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Daschle is President-elect Obama’s choice to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the newly created White House Office of Health Reform.

It was the first of two confirmation hearings, the second coming this week before the Senate Finance Committee.

Many noted the warm welcome he received  from both sides of the aisle, with difficult questions – his plans regarding Medicaid, Medicare and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, for example – conspicuously absent. Some lawmakers, notably Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have said that the current financial crisis precludes any drastic health care reform and expansion of federal spending for the moment.

Though the friendly tone of the hearing indicated common ground between Republicans and Democrats and a collective understanding that real reform needs to happen, there were no words on exactly how quickly or how far the president-elect and Daschle would push for drastic changes in our health care system.

The Congressional Budget Office has noted on multiple occasions that rising health care costs represent the central long-term fiscal challenge facing the country. Under current law, federal spending for Medicaid and Medicare alone will rise from 4 percent of gross domestic product in 2009 to 12 percent by 2050. We currently spend about 17 percent total of GDP on health care – about $2.4 trillion – and this is due to rise to nearly 20 percent by 2017. And with the Department of Labor announcing last week that the unemployment rate has risen to 7.2 percent, the ranks of the uninsured – already 47 million strong – look to swell, making things much worse.

Health care reform cannot be placed on the back burner. It must remain a top priority, and the president-elect must be willing to spend some of his accumulated political capital and stand firmly before a sometimes-hesitant Congress, pushing for broad-based, meaningful, evidence-based reform.