In the category of Things I've Been Meaning to Link To, Jon Gruber had a nice op-ed last week in the ways that health care reform could be used for immediate economic stimulus. The big player here is immediate aid to states for Medicaid and S-CHIP. In recessions, wages go down and jobs are lost, so lots more people need to avail themselves of public health coverage. But for those same reasons, state revenues go down. So states, because they can't deficit spend, either have to cut the programs, meaning people go without coverage, or take the money from other priorities, like infrastructure. An infusion of federal aid could bolster the programs and keep states from cutting necessary and beneficial spending. Win-win, as they say.
