There is a report that the cost of health care will rise to 20% of the federal budget with a total cost of $4 trillion annually by 2017 (here).
This is way beyond what this country can afford. Well at least it's more than we can afford if we want to avoid spending our children and grandchildren into a debt that only be paid off by massive rampant inflation.
So which candidate will admit this? None. Taking this on is political suicide. Remember when Walter Mondale admitted that he would raise taxes? What happened? He won exactly one state (and the District of Columbia) - by the way, that was exactly why I voted for him. Admit today that you intend to do the things that must be done to really control these health care costs, and you might as well dig a deep hole and climb into it.
I've said before, and I'll say again, fiscal sanity is my one and only issue. I hope that someone gets it.
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6 comments:
Is it that we are afraid to die? In a secular world, death is the ultimate enemy and one that must be staved off at all costs.
You've just quantified what "all costs" means.
Check out the budget projections for the Congressional budget Office If the graphs in that report don't scare you to death... your probably already dead.
Dang it, Todd, you didn't put in the right URL!
Here's the CBO home page.
KT - thanks for tracking down the correct URL.
Yes, that is the problem, truly massive amounts of money are spent at the vary end of life, keeping the body going, while the quality of that life is debatable.
Sorry about that, I was in a hurry. We had one of the economists from the CBO come out and give us a brief. He stated that the single biggest problem we have today is medicare. Social Security is an issue but Medicare is a problem as we all start growing old and drawing our benefits.
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