2006 State of the Nation

Teri Mills is a longtime Democracy For America community member. Her guest column on health care appears on Blog for America on Fridays and she blogs at nationalnurse.org.

Health care spending in the United States increased 7.9 percent to nearly $1.9 trillion in 2004. Once again wage growth fell behind and health care now makes up 16 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. The money spent on health care for each individual person living in America jumped from $5,670 in 2003 to $6,280 in 2004.

Our president has taken notice and ways to curb these costs will be a central theme during his State of the Nation address on January 31st. Apparently most of his proposals are ones we have heard in the past and range from raising the amount allowed to accumulate in existing health savings accounts; offering additional tax breaks for those who purchase private insurance on their own; establishing more portability for health insurance when people change jobs; and providing easier access to information regarding physician pricing and quality. What a progressive activist might wonder is do any of these suggestions actually save the average American worker any money? Will these proposals make it easier for our citizens to access and afford the existing health care system?

Senator Kennedy (D-MA) believes the changes proposed by Bush will worsen our health care crisis because they will actually transfer much of the cost on to the consumer. Paul Krugman believes our system needs an overhaul and more money must be dedicated to prevention. In an interview to Newsweek magazine, HHS Mike Leavitt also claims we need to focus on a prevention oriented society.

What suggestions do you have for fixing our health care crisis? You already know one of mine: nationalnurse.org.

Teri Mills, RN, MS, ANP
Democracy for Oregon

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