The Real Terminator

So Arnold Schwarzenegger is speaking up about the need for health care reform.

While this looks like a great show of bipartisan support for President Obama (Schwarzenegger is a Republican), it's understandable considering how much is at stake for states. A look at the dollar figures makes it clear why states' chief executives are concerned about the rising costs of health care.

A recent analysis by the Urban Institute concludes that if changes aren't made to the health care system, the worst-case scenario in 10 years looks like this:

The number of uninsured will rise more than 30 percent in 29 states; spending for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) will jump 75 percent for all states; the amount of uncompensated health care will more than double in 45 states; and businesses will see their health care premiums more than double in 27 states. (The data is for nonseniors to exclude people covered by Medicare, the federal government's health plan for the elderly.)

For California, which has an economy larger than all but six countries in the world, we're talking about billions of dollars in added health care costs borne by the public and private sectors.

The cost of California's Medicaid and CHIP programs would rise 112 percent to $59 billion by 2019, the Urban Institute estimates. California employers would see their insurance premiums more than double to $92.4 billion. Those figures represent the worst case, but the best-case scenario offers little solace: Medicaid and CHIP would jump 66 percent and employer premiums would shoot up 75 percent. Not even one of Schwarzenegger's powerful movie characters can stand up to such a beast.