Sam Granato on Health Care

Private-sector solutions exist to the health-care crisis

Those appointments drive his political agenda and helped create in him an awareness of the importance of social services, underscoring his decision to run as a Democrat. Also, his work with Intermountain demonstrated to him that a private-sector solution exists to the health-care crisis; he's an advocate for increased preventative care to stave off more costly major health problems.

Obamacare is a start, but we still have a long way to go

The PPACA is a multi-year overhaul that will not be fully implemented until 2018. That gives us time to fix some of the problems the law failed to adequately address. Cost-containment is the biggest issue left unresolved in the law. In 2008, we spent $7,400 on health care for every man, woman, and child in America. By 2018, the amount is expected to be $13,100 per person. If we do nothing to address rising health care costs, health care will consume nearly 21% of our national economy. The PPACA includes lots of new taxes, a 10% Sun Tan Tax on indoor tanning services, for example, but does little to address the problems that contribute to rising health care costs. Creating new taxes to pay for continuously rising costs is simply unsustainable.