The sheer volume of the proposed health care bill leaves me cross-eyed. The town hall shouting displays makes my head pound. However, amidst its chaos, the proposed reform results in two things: more Americans with quality health care, and more money in our wallets. 47 million Americans do not have health insurance. For many, it’s just too expensive. Congress’ health care reform bill, commissioned by President Obama, strives to eliminate this problem by being affordable. Denying the reform equals denying deserving citizens of medical care.

Not only does our health care system deny individuals, but it also denies our economy room to grow. According to Simona Covel of the Wall Street Journal, sometimes “healthcare is the highest expense after salaries” for small businesses, which are supposed to be the backbone of our economic recovery.

We need small businesses to thrive. Small businesses need Obama’s reform to thrive.

Furthermore, if we do not fix our health system now, its problems will continue to chip away at the economy. The United States spent $2.8 trillion on health care in 2008, and according to healthreform.gov, we will spend $4.4 trillion in 2018.

As costs continue to increase, I figured that our health care system would strive to at the least maintain its level of availability. Wrong. Medicare plans on reducing its payments by 21% in 2010.

If it cuts just half as much at 10%, healthreform.gov reports that 60% of physicians will reduce the amount of new Medicare patients they take, and 40% will reduce the number of Medicare patients they currently treat. As health care costs increase, health care availability will decrease.

All you need to do to see why our current system fails is peek into an emergency room. As we continue to grapple with our economic problems, we turn to the emergency room for medical quick-fixes. The Washington Post reported that emergency rooms are being stretched to their limits as hospitals have to spend money and energy on an increasing number of emergency room patients.

Many say that the American lifestyle-our consumption of fast food and lack of exercise-is to blame for the expensive health care and low life expectancy rating (24th amongst developed countries).

I am fine with placing the blame at our feet, but I do not foresee an American lifestyle reform bill in our near future. The only option we have is to reform our health care system.