The Patriot Post® · Wednesday Opinion
Today’s Editors’ Choice
- Gary Bauer: Clapper Controversy
- Byron York: Keeping Devin Nunes Out of the Game
- Star Parker: Work on Health Care Must Go On
To view all of today’s opinion, click here.
Opinion in Brief
Star Parker: “Let’s recognize that it’s not an option to stop working on health care reform. The problem is real and it’s not going away. Maybe we should dial down the volume and stop trying to solve this huge, complicated problem in one piece of legislation. Maybe we should take on each of these five systems that Tom Price singled out and address their unique problems separately. Government got involved in health care in big way to deal with the challenges of providing health care to the elderly and the poor. When Medicare and Medicaid became law of the land in the 1960s, government spending on health care was less than one half of 1 percent of our GDP. Today it is 5.5 percent of our GDP and the Congressional Budget Office projects that in 30 years it will be up to 9.2 percent. Around 130 million Americans are now covered by Medicare and Medicaid, not much less than the number of Americans with private insurance. Meanwhile, as government spending grows, CBO projects are widening budget deficits and increasing national debt, which CBO says will reach 150 percent of our GDP in 30 years. CBO says this ‘poses substantial risks.’ How can we pretend that this can continue? … We got Obamacare because Republicans didn’t take care of the health care problems we already had. Let’s not make the same mistake.”