"Health Care - A Lesson in Pain"

Joy125 — Wed, 13 May 2009 01:50:26 GMT

[size=2]By DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: May 12, 2009

The events of the last few weeks have raised the odds that a health care overhaul will really happen this year.

Democrats have suggested that they are willing to play hardball and pass a bill without Republican support. Arlen Specter, the senior Pennsylvania senator, became a Democrat, potentially adding one more vote. At the White House on Monday, lobbyists for doctors, insurers and other industry groups pledged to reduce the growth of medical spending.

Yet none of these developments has removed the main hurdle to health care reform: the matter of the missing $90 billion.

Providing health insurance to the roughly 50 million people without it will cost something like $120 billion a year. President Obama has proposed $60 billion or so in new revenue for this purpose — a “down payment,” his advisers say. But Congress seems set to reject about half of the down payment (a plan to limit high-income families’ tax deductions for charitable giving and other such things). That makes for the $90 billion health care hole.

And no one is quite sure how to fill it.

Because Mr. Obama has made it clear that health care is his top legislative priority, the $90 billion hole has become one of the biggest political issues of 2009. . .

TO READ COMPLETE ARTICLE SEE:

[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/business/economy/13leonhardt.html?ref=global-home[/url]

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"Health Care - A Lesson in Pain"