By Joan Mazzolini, Cleveland Plain Dealer
November 20, 2008

The U.S. economic crisis, rather than hinder health care reform, might hasten it instead.

Before the election, health reform advocates said the economic downturn, coupled with the federal bailout of banks, might doom efforts to overhaul the country's health care system.

The cost would be too high.

But since the election, momentum to overhaul the system has increased, despite -- or maybe because of -- ever-gloomier economic conditions.

"If we're going to revive our economy -- if we're going to restore a sense of economic security to ordinary American families -- we have to fix health care," Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern testified Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Finance.

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