The federal intervention in the credit crisis may make health-system changes even more dramatic when they do arrive, said Len Nichols, who heads [the health policy program] in Washington, D.C.-based New America Foundation, a policy research group.

"We can't just do nothing without bearing the cost of doing nothing, which is high and rising," said Nichols, a former adviser to President Clinton. "If we just do what we're doing, we're just taxing ourselves at an increasing rate in terms of lost opportunities, while we cover fewer and fewer people every year." LINK