Top U.S. Financial Official Warns of Crisis Generated by Healthcare

While a recent poll of Americans seems to suggest that Universal Healthcare is the answer to our healthcare woes – the Fed is not so sure.

Yesterday, the Fed’s chief accountability officer said that existing federal health insurance programs already face financial disaster.

"If there’s one thing that can bankrupt America, it’s health care," Comptroller General David Walker (not to be confused with State Comptroller Atkins, who was at an important conference, in Scottsdale) told about 500 attendees at a meeting held by the Federation of American Hospitals.

That doesn’t mean Americans don’t still want Universal Healthcare.  Nor does it stop for-profit hospital chains like Universal Health Services Inc. and Tenet Health Care Corp., from championing Universal Health Care.  Or private-sector groups, including a consortium led by Wal-Mart and a union for service workers, and different interest groups, representing doctors, insurers and retirees: all are seeking higher government spending.

However, Walker, who heads the Government Accountability Office, said the government is overwhelmed with obligations on existing entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare. He rejected the idea that U.S. economic growth, which would increase government coffers, will be enough to solve the problem.

"Anybody who tells you we are going to grow our way out of this, number one, hasn’t studied economic history, and number two, probably isn’t very proficient at math," Walker said.

Once the sting of our collectively maligned education wears away (we totally remember something about economics from that one class we audited in ’90-something – and also, we don’t have to be good at math because we have the Internet) – Walker may have a point.  The government’s liabilities have expanded nearly 150 percent the last six years alone, from $20 trillion in 2000 to $50 trillion in 2006. Nearly $8 trillion is for the Medicare prescription drug benefit, which launched last year.

Walker reminded the executives that while several universal health care proposals call for expanding Medicaid, it may be necessary to limit the program in the future, perhaps by changing the income level at which people qualify. Medicaid and Medicare together provide health benefits to more than 80 million senior citizens and low-income Americans.

All Americans should have access to a minimum level of coverage, Walker said, but there is not enough individual accountability for health care expenses.