Greg Sargent reports that Senate staffers are seriously considering including health care reform in any economic stimulus plan.
The general idea -- again, this is very preliminary -- is that a stimulus package of $300 billion or more, which is being suggested in some quarters, would be very hard to spend. So around $150 billion of it could go to health care reform, perhaps in the form of a big tax credit to employers covering employees for the first time, among other things.
The basic concept is that spending now to boost the economy -- and spending on health care reform -- would get our money double value. Economist Dean Baker has a good piece explaining the idea right here. More as we learn it.
The thing I like most about this idea is that we could provide a boost to the economy while simultaneously dealing with one of its long-term problems.
What do you think?
Bumped at 6:49PM. I'd inadvertantly scheduled another post that bumped this one, originally published at 5:32PM.
© Jed Lewison