"A new report last week makes the case (yet again) that this country is going to have to reform its health care system.

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said health care spending is now about 16 percent of the economy, but in less than a decade it will make up about 20 percent.

"We anticipate that society will again need to confront the underlying question about the supply of and demand for health care services," the report said, "as we anticipate that one in every five dollars will be devoted to this sector in 2015."

That's the rub -- underlying (and unresolved) questions about our very health care system.

President Bush's solution is for more Americans to own health savings accounts, or HSAs, coupled with some sort of high-deductible, catastrophic insurance plan.

The other end of the political discourse promotes a government-managed health care solution -- something along the lines of Great Britain or Canada."

Get the Story:
Mark Trahant: Health care: Knowledge could be power (The Seattle Post-Intelligencer 2/26)

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