If the findings of CBO over inaction had been released earlier, Ted Kennedy could've seen his lifetime wish come true.
Inaction cost, $9trillion over the next decade, can not be compared to the balance between estimate and outcome in a worst case of scenario, and this balance could be adjusted each year. ((Some of CBO analysis : While the costs of the financial bailouts and economic stimulus bills are staggering, they are only a fraction of the coming costs from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that each year Medicaid will expand by 7 percent, Medicare by 6 percent, and Social Security by 5 percent. These programs face a 75-year shortfall of $43 trillion--60 times greater than the gross cost of the $700 billion TARP financial bailout)). Time does not fix endless greed and energy depletion.
When the public health is also one of commodity like a house, we come to a tragic and unthinkable conclusion : As to for-profit business, the more and longer ills patients get, the more profits they make, and it will debilitate the overall economy involving education for the future, not to mention continued bankruptcy of middle class.
Of young adults ages 19 to 29, 13.2 million, or 29 percent, lacked coverage in 2007, and that implies the total of this promising reform will be cheaper than expected, I guess.
In case of an unexpected injury or ill, they might give up their learning or aspiration, in this regard, this reform means liberty, job opportunity, competitiveness for them and future.
Today is the time to boost health mileage just like Nissan Leaf and GM Volt.
Faced with unsustainable insurance premiums, the auto industry has little chance to roll out affordable products as the premium inflation plunged it into insolvency before.
With this promising reform that comes in with a balancing function for price in operation, Chevy Volt, too, could earn competitive edge in price along the way, together with Nissan Leaf.
Howard Fineman
Dr. Obama
How he handles swine flu could affect whether or not health reform gets passed.
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Should we greatly expand the federal government's role in regulating and providing health care for all Americans? As his fading poll numbers show, President Obama is having trouble getting us to yes on that question. He seems to be backpedaling from the so-called public option by the minute. And now he's facing a potential foe even more powerful and unpredictable than Congress: swine flu.
It's not lost on the White House that how they handle the largest inoculation program in our history could affect the public's (and Congress's) verdict on whether to entrust new health-care powers to government.
Simply put, if the Feds do their research and administrative work well—and if they are seen as having done so—it will strengthen their case. If they fail—if they are seen as either overreacting or underpreparing, stories about hysteria or confusion could kill "reform," assuming it's still alive come late fall.
"Here is a chance to show government at its best, doing what only government can do well," said a top health-care official, who declined to speak on the record because the person didn't have official permission to do so. "Unless we screw it up."
Deep in the folk memory of this generation of federal and local public-health administrators and epidemiologists is the story of the swine-flu scare of 1976. Forty-six million Americans were vaccinated in anticipation of a pandemic that did not materialize, and for which there was precious little evidence. But dozens died from the vaccine. Critics accused President Gerald Ford of hyping the crisis to help his reelection chances. He lost, and history’s verdict has been just as harsh.
This is a different situation: the chances of pandemic are very real here, and it has already been called a "public health emergency" by the Department of Health and Human Services. Even though the severity of swine-flu cases, at least so far, has been no greater than run-of-the-mill seasonal flu, more than 300 have died in the U.S.
But the prospect of the largest national vaccination program in the history of the world is raising hopes but also stirring fears. The hope is to heroically avert a true global pandemic—not to mention the scary prospect of the swine flu somehow converging with seasonal flu either directly or in sequence.
At the same time there are fears of: mandatory vaccinations (untrue); federally ordered school closings (also untrue), and widespread community disruptions that could result if federal officials decide that the flu outbreak is severe enough to suggest the wisdom of "preemptive school dismissals" (quite possible).
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