At the same time, 25% of Americans do not have any kind of health insurance coverage or not enough to pay for all of their expenses. (Amadeo) This can have an impact upon their financial well being, as a person must spend money that they do not have, to treat different conditions that could be life threatening. Once this begins to occur, is when the total number of bankruptcies will begin to rise sharply. As nearly half of all the filings that are made are: medical related, due to the overwhelming costs and the inability to pay them. (Amadeo) These different challenges are creating sudden shift in the economy that are: having short- and long-term impacts upon economic growth. What is happening is rising health care costs are beginning to become a hidden tax on: businesses and consumers. As they are slowly eating away at any kind of added investments that can take place for: businesses and the disposable income of many individuals. This is problematic, because it means that the more health costs begin to rise, the lower amounts of money that will be spent in the economy. At the same time, various government programs (such as Medicare) are facing increasing amounts of pressure from rising health care costs. The reason why, is because these costs have begun to outstrip the total amounts of funding for these programs. They also are facing added strains from: Baby Boomers and senior citizens (who are using this to help offset their rising health care costs). As a result, these programs are expected to beginning to face the possibility of becoming insolvent in the future. This is problematic, because it means that...

While bankrupting, millions of individuals and possibly various social programs such as: Medicare. Therefore, some kind of drastic action must be taken and adjustments need to be made over the course of time to deal with these problems. (Amadeo) (Francis)
Clearly, health care reform can address some of the long-term economic issues that are affecting businesses (rising costs). As reforms could reduce the total impact on these organizations and employees, by ensuring that everyone is able to have access to affordable coverage. While at the same time, they can impose various limitations to help control the rising costs through: increased competition and regulation. When you put these different elements together, this will reduce the total drag that these costs are having on businesses and consumers, by spreading them out among a number of parties. You would then go after the root causes of the increases, to prevent sudden spikes in the future. Once this takes place, is when productivity and innovation can be maximized, because this problem has been dealt with.

Bibliography

"The Boomer Stats." BBHQ, 2011. Web. 10 Mar. 2011

"The Economic Effects of Health Care Reform." The White House, 2010. Web. 10 Mar. 2011

Amadeo, Kimberly. "Health Care Reform." About.com, 2011. Web. 10 Mar. 2011.

Francis, Diane. "Health Care Reform is Smart." Huffington Post, 2010. Web. 10 Mar. 2011.

MLA Format. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/