"The fourth pillar of the new foundation is a 21st century health care system where families, businesses, and government budgets aren't dragged down by skyrocketing insurance premiums" President Obama said in his Georgetown U. speech. "Fixing our health care system will certainly require resources, but in my budget, we've made a commitment to fully pay for reform without increasing the deficit, and we've identified specific savings that will make the health care system more efficient and reduce costs for us all."
Universal health care is necessary not just for individuals but for companies, large and small, swamped by the cost of health insurance. To help the budgets of individuals, families and businesses, health care will free money for other purposes in both the short and long terms, and therefore is a critical part of economic recovery and restructuring. But President Obama made one other point, that isn't usually noticed.
At first he seemed to be moving on from the pillar of health care to the pillar of reducing the federal deficit. But after explaining the need to deal with the long term government deficit and how his administration is attacking this problem (more on that in a post to follow), he spoke about the need to reform entitlements like Medicare and Social Security in order to forestall greater deficits, and to meet this goal, "Nothing will be more important to this goal than passing health care reform that brings down costs across the system, including in Medicare and Medicaid. Make no mistake: health care reform is entitlement reform. That's not just my opinion – that was the conclusion of a wide range of participants at the Fiscal Responsibility Summit we held at the White House in February, and that's one of the reasons why I firmly believe we need to get health care reform done this year."
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