The health care reform battle

The health care reform battle

Long Island Newsday: President Barack Obama did two important things in recent days to set the stage for the bruising health care battle to come. Thursday he went to Wisconsin and talked to ordinary people in a town-hall meeting — moving the debate, if only for a moment, beyond the special interests that dominate in Washington. And Tuesday he urged Congress to restore pay-as-you-go rules, so that any additional dollar spent by the government would have to be matched by a dollar saved or raised via taxes. Both things — focusing on the concerns of ordinary people and on how we’ll pay the $1.5 trillion, 10-year tab — are critical if the debate is to flower, as it must, into significant reform.

Fewer options exist

With medical costs soaring, tens of millions uninsured, Medicare and Medicaid driving federal deficits, employers abandoning medical coverage, and the cost of care pushing families into bankruptcy, doing nothing is no longer an option. Reform is an economic necessity.

Obama’s PAYGO push met with some guffaws. A president who inherited a huge deficit, made it even bigger and then called for fiscal discipline, is an easy target. But as Washington moves beyond economic crisis management to structural reform, living within its means is key. It’s no coincidence that PAYGO was in place in the 1990s when deficits became surpluses, or that deficits reappeared after it was abandoned.

Health care for all is important. So is responsibly paying for it.