Healthcare

by Laurence J. Kotlikoff

The derailment of the Senate and House health care bills is a blessing in disguise. Intentions were good, but the gargantuan bills made us nuts. How can we afford another huge health care system without a failsafe means of controlling Medicare and Medicaid spending, which can easily bankrupt the nation? Neither bill contains such means.

Now that the United States is in to China, we need to save money. One answer is cutting healthcare costs, with the lowest hanging fruit being biologics. Biologics are protein-based, rather than chemical-based, medicines. They are wonder drugs, treating cancer, diabetes, Crohn’s, arthritis, and a range of other heartbreaking diseases.

March 14, 2009

By Laurence J. Kotlikoff

The US federal government faces a long-term fiscal gap, which exceeds, from all indications, $70 trillion. This gap is the present value difference between all projected future expenditures and all projected future receipts.

Our country faces three terrible and worsening healthcare crises.

First, 47 million Americans, including 8 million children, have no health insurance coverage. In 1987 the uninsured totaled 32 million. In two decades, we’ve seen nearly a 50% rise in those without health insurance.

BIG NUMBERS, like 45 million uninsured Americans, are hard to grasp. But that number came home to me at a recent conference. The keynote speaker was former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Her topic was our healthcare system, and her message was personal and anguished.