July 26, 2011 12:55PM 

# Health Care Entitlements Are the Real Debt Bomb 

By [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/michael-f-cannon) 

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I’m a few days behind on this, but over at *The Corner* Yuval Levin has written an important [post](http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/272407/missing-debt-yuval-levin) about how health care entitlements are the real cause of the debt crisis facing the federal government. Using Congressional Budget Office projections, Levin creates this magnificent chart, which I plan to steal over and over again:

If Republicans want to conquer the federal debt, they need to [embrace](http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/222513) [health policy](https://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa650.pdf) like they embrace tax cuts.

##### Related Tags 

[General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) 

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