a sense of proportion

Regardless of what one thinks about health care reform a sense of proportion is completely missing from this debate. The most current data we have for total earnings in the U.S. yield a figure of over $14 trillion. This means, even if we assume no growth in the U.S. economy over the next ten years, we will generate earnings of $140 trillion. The horrifically high figure of $1 trillion in additional spending over the next ten years for health care reform therefore represents well less than 1% of this total. Worthwhile or not, given the size of the U.S. economy 1 trillion dollars over ten years is NOT a lot of money. Also note that the Census department estimates that the average U.S. family spent about $6-$7 A DAY on food away from home in 2007. With over 121 million households this translates into $300 billion dollars spent in 2007 eating out. Not that I am suggesting this as a way to fund health care reform but I find it interesting that we could, by cutting how much we eat out by a third, we could easily handle annual costs of $100 billion a year. Finally, the burden of paying $100 billion more to improve access to healthcare works out to be about $328 per American. This means in my own case my family chipping in less than $1000 each year to help out. To paraphrase Vonnegut, we could have saved ourselves but we were too damn cheap.