Spending that's smart, and right

By Arlen Specter

What if we could improve the federal government's fiscal situation by substantially reducing the rising health-care expenditures that are pushing it toward an economic precipice? Wouldn't there be vigorous bipartisan support for that?

Apparently not, because there is a way to do so, but its champions are too few and insufficiently boisterous. In fact, the new, incredibly myopic ideological mantra in Washington is that all federal spending is bad - if not downright unconstitutional - and should be sawed off. That's preventing any thoughtful consideration of the most prudent and ethical approach to putting our long-term budget in order.

If health-care costs grow at the same rate in the next four decades as in the last four, the cost of Medicare and Medicaid will grow from 5 percent of our economy to more than 20 percent. This would essentially consume all of our current federal budget. And given our aging population, there is every reason to believe health expenses will continue growing rapidly, even with the cost-saving measures in last year's health-care reform law. Everything else in the fiscal picture - including Social Security - is trivial compared to this looming tsunami.

There are only two options being considered, and both are bad: We could raise taxes on the workers of the future to the point where their standard of living declines dramatically, or we could ration health care in gross and unconscionable ways. While no one wants to live in that sort of country, the numbers are stubborn.

But I believe that America can reshuffle this deck. I believe we can live longer, healthier lives by harnessing the genius of our biomedical research community and getting about the task of accelerating cures. If we can reduce the number of people who face the diseases that require intensive, invasive, expensive care, we can improve not only the quality of their lives, but also the future of the American economy.

Throughout my time in the Senate, I made it one of my highest priorities to increase federal investment in medical research, and I regarded the National Institutes of Health as the crown jewel of the federal government. Of course, my own battles with cancer made the matter personal.

During my service on the Senate Appropriations Committee, funding for the NIH went from $12 billion to $30 billion, and I persuaded my fellow members of Congress to include another $10 billion in the economic stimulus bill.

I also fought for a provision in the health-care reform legislation that's little-known outside the world of medical research. It creates within the NIH a "Cures Acceleration Network" designed to break down the substantial structural barriers to moving research results from laboratories to the bedsides of ailing Americans, building a bridge over what researchers themselves call the "valley of death."

Nonetheless, thanks to the false but spreading wisdom that all federal spending is evil and that no cut is a mistake, our country has been effectively disinvesting in efforts to cure diseases for the past six years. The pace of this wrongheaded approach promises to quicken in the new Congress. In fact, even though NIH director Dr. Francis Collins recently called the Cures Acceleration Network a "shared dream" in a note to me, Sen. Richard Burr (R., N.C.) is trying to kill it before it takes its first steps.

We stand at a fork in the road. Scientific opportunity and the pace of discovery have never been greater. With proper investment and oversight, just as our country built the atomic bomb and went to the moon, we can defeat monsters like cancer, heart disease, autism, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's. Such ailments are not only the greatest source of tears shed in our nation today; they also threaten to be by far the greatest consumers of our nation's treasure tomorrow. But we can convert our medical system from a "sickness industry" into a genuine provider of health.

I've been asked what goals I have in my life after the Senate. I have many, but one of the most urgent will be to continue the fight for medical research.