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"Health care reform key to the economy" is the most frequently read impact to the health care disadvantage.

A new study of the Senate bill, the version of health care most likely to pass, concludes that health care reform will result in a marginal increase in costs:

New York Times, January 10, 2010,  http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/10/us/politics/AP-US-Obama-Health-Care.html

Americans would see only a modest rise in health care costs under the Senate's plan to extend coverage to 34 million people who currently go without health insurance, government economic experts say in a new report.

The study found that health spending, which accounts for about one-sixth of the economy, would increase by less than 1 percent than it otherwise would over the coming decade even with so many more people receiving coverage.

Columbus Dispatch, 1-10, 10, http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2010/01/10/jrcol10.ART_ART_01-10-10_G5_M5G8C6H.html?sid=101

How much will health care cost Ohio under the Senate bill, the

version that likely will win out on most fronts when it is reconciled with the House bill?

Amanda Wurst, a spokeswoman for Gov. Ted Strickland, has said under the Senate bill, the state estimates as many as 560,000 people in Ohio would become eligible for Medicaid. Overall, nearly 2 million people in Ohio currently are covered by Medicaid at an annual total cost of about $13 billion.