Recently, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the Senate Finance Committee's health reform plan would cost $1.6 trillion over 10 years. The estimate left many in Washington and around the country with sticker shock. Authors Linda Blumberg and John Holahan place the estimate in context by showing that the costs of health reform are less than 1 percent of estimated GDP and a small fraction of expected health care spending for that period as well. They also contend that the costs associated with inaction are at least as big as those of directly addressing the problems we currently face.