A Healthy Economy

In fact, we have a magic bullet for short-term spending and long-term saving--health care reform. During the campaign, skeptics complained that a health care overhaul would involve a lot of upfront costs and that the saving would only come later. But that's exactly what we need right now. Health care involves major spending in the near future, but, more than other initiatives, it will put a brake on federal outlays in the far future.

All this argues for temporarily throwing fiscal caution to the wind when it comes to health care reform. The idea of spiking the deficit now may seem frightening, but it's a lot better than the alternative--and it could actually make it easier to bring universal health care to America.

A Healthy Economy