If costs per enrollee in our two main Federal health care programs, Medicare and Medicaid, grow at the same rate as they have for the past 40 years, those two programs will increase from about 5 percent of GDP today to about 20 percent by 2050. (As the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and others have noted, there are reasons to expect cost growth to slow in the future relative to the past even in the absence of policy changes. But the point remains that reasonable projections of health care cost growth under current policies shows that they are the central cause of the Nation's long-term fiscal imbalance.) Many of the other factors that will play a role in determining future fiscal conditions -- including the actuarial deficit in Social Security -- pale by comparison over the long term with the impact of cost growth in the Federal government health insurance programs. Health care is the key to our Nation's fiscal future, and health care reform is entitlement reform. [emphasis added]
""C.S. & M.W.
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