Whip Inflation Now

In his column in today's New York Times, David Brooks bemoans the lack of cost-control in the health reform legislation being discussed on Capitol Hill.

He begins:

Over the past few decades, health care inflation has exceeded the general rise in prices by about 2.5 percent a year. These inexorably rising costs are bankrupting the nation, walloping businesses and squeezing middle-class salaries.

Fortunately, the country now has an excellent opportunity to change that. We have a president fervently committed to reducing health care inflation. We have a budget director who is perhaps the nation’s leading expert on the issue. We have a fiscal crisis staring us in the face, just to focus the mind.

And what is the result so far? Failure. Overwhelming, amazing failure.

» Read the rest of his column