Can We Afford NOT to Pursue Health Reform?

by Brigette Courtot, Policy Analyst
National Women’s Law Center

This post is part of a weekly series on Women and Health Reform.

As I settled into the back of a taxi headed to the Tampa airport on Tuesday, the cab driver—eyeing my plastic name badge and the brand new screen-printed tote bag on my lap—asked what had brought me to his city.  In the course of explaining the conference I’d just attended, I mentioned that my work involved health reform—“you know, changing the health system so that we all have good health insurance, and so that we all get high-quality health care.”

This was met with skepticism—“Sure, it sounds good.  But look at what is happening to our economy.  Can we afford to do these things you are talking about?”  He was right about one thing—the economy is going belly-up, and it seems to be taking American’s retirement funds, hopes of homeownership, and general peace-of-mind with it.  But his observation about health reform was off-target.  The question is not “Can we afford health reform?” but rather “Can we afford not to have health reform?”  Health reform isn’t just a wish-list item that we can save for another day; in fact, the problems that plague our health system contribute in a major way to the economic troubles that families are facing.  Nearly 1 in 3 Americans report a serious problem paying for health care and health insurance, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll.  Similarly, our July poll found that a quarter of women are not at all confident that they will be able to cover health care costs for themselves and their families in the years ahead.  For low-income women, this proportion doubled, with half saying they weren’t confident at all in their ability to pay for health care.

Health reform and the economy are inextricably linked, and it’s not—as my cab driver friend implied—because they cancel each other out! We must address the problems in our health care system so that we can improve families’ economic situations. The country must adopt smart initiatives that will improve quality while slowing the growth of health care costs. There is plenty of evidence that we can make our health care system run in a more effective way that will benefit not only our health, but our pocketbooks. 

The U.S. spends 16 percent of its gross domestic product on health care—about twice as much as most major industrialized nations. Yet more and more Americans are finding themselves without coverage or with health insurance that is pitifully inadequate, leaving them no choice but to rack up medical debt, spend down savings, or use loans and credit cards to pay for health care. Can we afford health reform?  Wrong question. Only comprehensive health reform will provide women and their families with the high-quality and affordable coverage they need to live healthy—and financially secure—lives.

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It is good articel, now a know about health reform.