it's not really scarry to me but it seems to me a little bit of a socialist grab. i guess for people out there that don't have insurance that could use it. that's a huge expense. i'd like to see if any of you can justify what the benefits are compared to the cost. thank you. >> andrew biggs? guest: i'll start with a point you made towards the end that was if we have time for this. i remember back in the bush efforts. people were saying you are crisismongering. we have the same issue here. we are not in the crisis yet but the ship of state moves very, very slowly. in we want to avoid that 90% debt to gdp point in the future, we have to start today. we could take up an entire show talking about this. i'll make one point. even if the health points reduces production. which is around $140 billion, i don't believe it is going to do that. that is about $140 billion is about as much as the federal government will baro this month. it's a tiny reduction compared to the overall baroing. it uses up things that could be used to fix entitlements. the savings don't go to medicar

we have to keep in mind that we are running off a really scarry amount of debt in this country. we could go the same way of greece. believe me, that would be much worse and more painful for everyone than some increase in taxes along with some spending cuts. di 20/20, taxes without changes u.s. today article discusses social security. the program costs $715 billion to 2020. possibilities include >> we need to raise the retirement age and raise the means testing. social security is probably the easier to fix. we know how to take care of that. it is medicare that is the real problem out in the future. >> you want to weigh in on that. i agree with all of that. i wouldn't want to index the social security index to low income americans but for people above that level who don't need it, i think we should begin to income relate out in the future. you nood to give people time to prepare. you can't suddenly pull the rug out. we all agree with that. the basic point is that there's a lot of agreement within the policy community about these issues. the problem is political paralysis. the deb