could see that voters' top priority was jobs, jobs,
jobs. So they focused on ... health care reform.
In 2010, the Republicans took America's pulse and
concluded that voters still want jobs, jobs, jobs. So
the new GOP majority in the House has also made
health care — namely repealing the law enacted last
year — its first priority.
Go figure.
Each party has dealt with this disconnect in its own
way. The Democrats reasoned that the economy was
recovering and that the public would come to
embrace their health care measure as an important
addition to financial security. They're still waiting.
OPPOSING VIEW: High labor costs = fewer jobs
Republicans have opted for hollow rhetoric. They
simply insert the words "job killing" before any mention of the health care law. It's in the title of the
repeal bill, expected to be voted on Wednesday. And
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, used the term
seven times in a 14-minute news conference on the
first day of the new Congress.
Simplistic labels, such as the effort to rebrand the
estate tax as the "death tax," can be smart politics if
they subtly alter people's perceptions. But a heavy-
handed approach like this, which tells people what
to think without any explanation for why, is unlikely
to be effective. Not only that, it flies in the face of
reality.
The evidence that the medical care reform law will
be a job-killer is slim to none. While there is no
shortage of rosy or pessimistic assessments
produced by groups on either side of this debate,
the few independent studies of the law's impact on
jobs have offered up resounding shrugs. In 2009,
researchers at the RAND Corp. and the Lewin Group
said its overall job impact would be minimal.
The reason for this is simple. Whatever positive or
negative can be said about the health care reform
measure — and we believe that the pros outweigh
the cons — the sad truth is it does little to alter the
velocity of medical spending, which at the current
rate of increase would push family insurance
premiums to $25,000 a year within a decade.
Market forces, normally good for holding down
spending, are virtually non-existent in health care
because patients and providers are mostly spending
other people's money — an employer's through
work or the government's through Medicare,
veterans' benefits or various other programs. In fact,
 |  | |
| By Anthony Weber, AP | ||
| ||
| Dr. Don Nguyen, foreground center, of Doctors for America, discusses a petition in support of the health care reform law. | ||
government already pays for about half of all health
care while providing hefty tax breaks for the half it
doesn't pay for, and every time government tries to
be frugal, it's accused of rationing and price fixing,
not least by interests that benefit from the spending.
So costs rise everywhere. To the extent that the
health law affects employment, it just continues the
shift of jobs into medical areas at the expense of
jobs in other sectors as the Baby Boom generation
ages. Among the 20 professions projected to grow
the fastest by the Labor Department, 10 are in health
care; several others, in areas such as biochemistry
and physical therapy, are related.
These trends should prompt lawmakers to focus on
what they can do to improve the health care law and
rein in surging costs. Slapping the "job killing" label
on the repeal bill is an effort to avoid making tough
decisions and coming up with better ideas.
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