Can we afford health-care reform: Yes

By Roderick Gilkey

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Health care reform and its twin, health insurance reform, have a long and sadly unsuccessful history in this country. Resistance to reform is nothing new.

Health care reform’s projected $1 trillion price tag is a tempting target for opponents of reform and a tough sell for some of its defenders, lukewarm or otherwise. After all, it is a number with a lot of zeroes, sure to ignite sticker shock — especially in tough economic times.

Just like any other large expenditure, though, we need to look at more than the price tag and ask ourselves a few other question: What can we expect to get for that $1 trillion over 10 years, and what would happen to health care costs if we either avoided reform or didn’t reform aggressively enough to reap the potential benefits?

Between 2010 and 2020, cumulative health spending is expected to reach $40 trillion. The $1 trillion price tag of proposed reform measures over that same period represents just 2.5 percent of that spending. It’s deficit-neutral, not borrowed.

What will we get for it? Coverage for 47 million uninsured, and peace of mind for those of us who are lucky enough to be insured — that our insurance company will not be allowed to drop us when we become ill, or deny us coverage for a pre-existing condition if we move to another employer.

And if we don’t spend it on reform? Our health care spending as a proportion of gross domestic product (already nearly 18 percent) and per person ($7,290) will continue to outpace other industrialized countries, with far less to show for it in terms of better health or longer lives. Health care spending will continue to be a drain on our economy and inequities in health and health care a stain on our sense of ourselves as a civilized country.

Can we afford health care reform? Yes, we can — and we must. What we can’t afford is to continue our current combination of spiraling costs, random and restricted access, and suboptimal health outcomes.

About Roderick Gilkey
 -- Gilkey is a professor at Emory University’s Goizueta business school and in clinical psychiatry at the university’s School of Medicine. He edited “The 21st Century Healthcare Leader.”