It's the Demographics, People!By Lea Abdnor

Reforming the health care system is one of the hottest topics in this presidential election year. Dire reports of increasing costs, as well as the uninsured left out in the cold, tug at the hearts and purse strings of Americans. But beware of a subtle but dangerous thread to this issue: some analysts and journalists on the left are saying that the real problem with entitlements (Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid) is healthcare costs, not demographics. Thus, the Social Security shortfall-based on demographics (and increasing benefits, BTW), isn't important. Medicare and Medicaid are, they say. But, they say, you can't just look at government's healthcare costs in those programs-we have to look at all heathcare costs for the solution, public and private...thus government paid national healthcare.

As the Concord Coalition writes in a recent report, ("Honey, I shrunk the Demographics!"), "budget expert Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institute claimed in Health Affairs this fall that 'anticipated budget problems are fully explained by projected growth in Medicare and Medicaid,' and thus Aaron claimed that any so-called general budget or entitlement crisis is 'imaged' and 'fictitious.'" The Concord report also says: "Columnist Paul Krugman, after pinning all of the projected growth in federal spending on rising health costs in a recent New York Times op-ed, declares that 'the whole Beltway obsession with the fiscal burden of an aging population is misguided.'"

Concord's response to this "school of thought, "is their very well researched and well written report mentioned above. Their research shows that the growth in Medicare is 46% due to the aging of our population, not healthcare costs. The growth in cost of Medicaid due to an aging population is smaller (13%), "mainly because the elderly only comprise a fraction of total Medicaid beneficiaries."

I wonder what our Comptroller General, David Walker, would say to these recent claims. The truth is that both the aging population and rising healthcare costs are why our entitlements programs are more then $50 trillion in debt.