2,400,000,000,000 reasons for health-care reform

Last year, U.S. spending on medical care reached $2.4 trillion. That's nearly twice the current $1.3 trillion federal deficit. Expressed another way, the United States spends 16.5 percent of its gross domestic product on health care. This rate of spending simply cannot be sustained.

The numbers themselves make a strong case for health-care reform efforts on the state and federal levels. In Utah, HB188 is winding its way through the Legislature. It is one of three bills proposed by the legislative Health System Reform Task Force. It proposes structural changes in the health-insurance markets and new benefit plans for small groups or individuals. One of the most exciting aspects of the proposal is a Web site that will offer consumers price and quality comparisons.

After easy passage in the House, HB188 is expected to come before the Utah Senate this week. It is the inaugural step in what the bill's sponsor, House Speaker Dave Clark, expects to be a decade-long process. Even so, it's a good beginning.

It is relatively easy to identify what is wrong with the nation's health-care system. For starters, 47 million Americans don't have health insurance, which drives up costs for all. People who have no access to primary care neglect small problems that worsen and result in expensive emergency room visits.

Meanwhile, the health-care system rewards bad quality care the same as good quality care. As former Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt told the Deseret News editorial board recently, the nation's health-care system is, however, highly effective at writing checks.

Therein lies the problem, the unchecked inflation of health-care costs. In fact, President Barack Obama, in his first address to a joint session of Congress this past week, said health-care premiums have grown four times faster than wages during the past eight years. The "crushing cost of health care," as Obama puts it, is responsible for a bankruptcy every 30 seconds.

As a nation, the United States can no longer afford to put health-care reform on hold.

But it remains to be seen whether Congress will take up health-care reform in this session. As Clark and Leavitt have explained to the Deseret News editorial board, both Congress and the states have to play a role in ensuring more people have access to care, that costs can be contained and good quality care is provided.

Thus far, Utah's Health System Reform Task Force has done a commendable job of dissecting these issues and developing solutions that marry market principles and personal responsibility.

The task force's work is far from complete, but credit Speaker Clark and task force members for wrestling with these highly complex issues on the state level. As costs continue to escalate, work on these matters cannot wait.