Health system pressure is on, and building

But will higher costs and more people without insurance translate into renewed calls for reform?

By Amy Snow Landa, AMNews staff. Feb. 4, 2002.

Washington -- Consensus is growing in Washington, D.C., that rising health insurance costs, combined with a slowing economy and higher unemployment, will cause a dramatic increase in the number of uninsured Americans.

But it remains unclear whether the federal government will respond to the intensifying pressures on the health care system with another attempt at comprehensive reform or will simply let the system drift.

The buzz of concern is growing louder among public policy experts, who fear that federal and state budget deficits have severely undermined government's ability to address the health care system's problems.

"The climate is pretty bleak for a long time to come," said Henry Aaron, PhD, a senior economist at the Brookings Institution. "On all fronts, the pressure to do something [to reduce] the number of uninsured is going to greatly intensify, even as the prospect of any fiscal elbow room to do anything about it will shrink."

Dr. Aaron and other public policy experts discussed the outlook for health care at a forum held last month by the consumer group Families USA.

In his remarks, Dr. Aaron criticized the "rashness" of last year's 10-year, $1.3 trillion tax-cut package, which he said would make it all but impossible to make significant new investments in health care coverage.

Lack of funds is certainly one of the barriers to enacting any proposal that would achieve universal coverage, said Judy Feder, PhD, a professor and dean of policy studies at Georgetown University. "But the second challenge is as great. And that is overcoming a skepticism about government." [...]