NY Times article on Health Care in Obama Recovery Package

Great piece in the NY Times magazine earlier this month talking about the Stimulus package and the big strategic centerpieces that Obama has talked about: energy, education and obviously health care.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/magazine/01Economy-t.html

Peter Orszag, one of Obama's economic gurus, argues health care reform is the only way the government ever convinces the world it can afford its debt and avoid higher interest rates that will depress economic growth.

"Orszag would begin his talks by explaining that the problem is not one of
demographics but one of medicine. “It’s not primarily that we’re going to have
more 85-year-olds,” he said during a September speech in California. “It’s primarily that each
85-year-old in the future will cost us a lot more than they cost us today.” The
medical system will keep coming up with expensive new treatments, and Medicare
will keep reimbursing them, even if they bring little benefit."