Health Reform Comes at “Very Explosive” Budgetary Time

Marguerite Bowling / June 23, 2009

As Congress grapples with how to feasibly pay for a serious overhaul of the nation’s health care sector, which makes up nearly 17 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, health economist James Capretta urged the American public to keep an eye on the country’s annual growth rate of retirement.

“Baby boom retirement is going to have a huge impact on health care costs over the long run,” Capretta said today at a Heritage Foundation-sponsored reporter roundtable. “It’s already a very explosive budgetary situation that we’re in. That’s the context in which health reform is being discussed,” said Capretta, a fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center. (more…)