The recent passage of the Senate health care bill paves the way for an up or down vote on health care reform. The million dollar question is what effect would health care reform have on creating new jobs and reducing the alarming jobless rate.

With more than 15 million Americans still out of work, you would think health care reform would be welcomed with open arms. Why? For starters history shows us that sweeping regulation almost always leads to job growth. So then why all the health care opposition? Well, history also shows us that lack of knowledge promotes fear which in turn equals opposition. Considering the government in general is not necessary recognized for efficiency, people naturally tend to think that health care reform would equate to inefficiency and inept medical treatment. The ironic part is just how efficient is health care, as is, today? With current overpaid overpriced health care treatment by medical workers with dollar signs in their eyes, you're lucky to not have a knee scape cost you a few thousand dollars. On top of that, with more and more doctors looking to deflect incompetence with medical malpractice insurance and civil damage jury award caps, its a no-brainer that medical treatment for most non wealthy Americans is an "at your own risk" encounter.

Sure, the Feds could and should do a great deal more in ensuring that if health care reform passes that it does not become a boondoggle. Even so, leaving the current system as is and allowing the burden to grow on society, in the form of uninsured treatment hidden coverage hikes, is simply foolish. As the old saying goes, there is no free lunch. You either pay now or you pay later - but indeed you do pay. All things considered it's probably better to pay a known fixed price that to keep dealing with hidden surcharges and fees that line the pockets of health care administrators under the guise of "increasing administrative costs."

Equally as important if not more important is that jobs will undoubtedly be created through revamping the health care system. The only question is how many jobs? You can bet there will be more than a few jobs necessary to implement the new infrastructure to support the system as well as people to manage it. So with all the training and implementation required you can expect long term jobs from health care reform for years to come. In essence, health care reform will create jobs and drive down the massive jobless figure of over 15 million unemployed. Of course, health care alone won't be enough to bring the unemployment rate in line with say 5% but its a solid start. Moreover, its probably the best idea on the table yet. That is, unless, you're one of those who favors reducing taxes on wealthy, thereby increasing the need to borrow and further inflating the national deficit so that China will own more and more of United States future. Now that ought to alarm folks more than health care reform.

As you probably already know, the economy is hardly doing well, despite the recent drop in the unemployment rate to 9.7%. So the question is, if Americans are still longing for hiring then why exactly is Congress sparring and jockeying for who will get credit for a jobs bill? Perhaps that's just how politics works, but its pretty clear that job seekers across the country are looking for Congress to promote hiring versus party line bickering and positioning to take credit for any potential jobs growth bill.

So lets say Congress can pull off an actual jobs growth stimulus plan, the bigger question is -- will such a stimulus target the usual suspect jobs such as construction for example? In other words, even if a jobs creation bill were to be signed into law would it target industries across the board or simply an industry here and an industry there? Take for example, the telecommunications industry which is largely responsible for providing the Internet backbone; for years it has been known that the US lags behind most other countries in the world (including what many would could consider third world countries) in terms of broadband connectivity as a standard. Hello! Even Google went on record recently stating that the Internet is just too freaking slow. Thus, instead of blindly pumping cash into more construction jobs, here's a thought, how about throwing a bone to the T-comm industry to help upgrade the Internet backbone. Doing so, would pick up where the last Internet bubble bust left off. Undoubtedly you would be talking about hiring at least 500,000 workers for such a large long running project.

The bottom line is that everyone knows the economy has a lot of rebounding to do. What's more important is when are we going to get some positive traction going versus continuous rhetoric and sensationalizing? Moreover, do you think any of the other 15 industries could use a lift? In the grand scheme of things the construction industry is a small contributor to the GDP, yet the subject of a lot of focus when it comes to talks about job growth and stimulus projects. In any event while Congress is sparring Americans need hiring...not next quarter, not next year...now. The rhetoric is running out of steam and Americans are frustrated and tired, which means in the end both political parties will pay dearly if both party members don't stop resting on their six figure salaries and help get unemployed Americans back to work.

The news we all have been waiting for...a decline in the jobless rate...surely that's good reason for a celebration. Whoa cowboy, maybe you should slow that horse down a minute. Why? Well the classic adage comes to mind, "...there are lies, lies and then there are statistics..." So lets take a look at the statistics that are fueling the embellished headlines cheering for this mysterious job growth.

Fundamentally speaking real job growth is directly related to hiring not the reduction of firing or job losses. Perhaps, that is why you hear so much focus on the jobless rate versus hiring, since the jobless rate figures can be altered to suit ones cause. For example, what you aren't hearing or which is otherwise buried deep in an article somewhere is that the primary factors that have lead to the so called decrease in the jobless rate are the following.

1.) A whooping increase of 266,000 job seekers who have given up on their job search

2.) The November upward revision to 64,000 jobs was largely due to seasonal/temporary/part-time hiring

3.) The national foreclosure rate is raging higher thus still out of control

What should really be jumping off the page right now is that more and more job seekers simply aren't being counted in the unemployment rate figures as unemployment benefits are exhausted and job seekers give up. With the way things are going, don't expect the Feds to extend unemployment benefits again. Why? Why should they, it only adds to their black eye about the struggling economy. In essence, if they extend unemployment benefits again that would acknowledge that the economy is still struggling which in turn would increase scrutiny of the current state of the economy. As for the home foreclosure rate, this is absolutely ridiculous. People don't get their homes foreclosed on because they have good paying jobs and CAN pay their mortgage. Quite the opposite is true. In fact, the only state East of the Mississippi to have higher foreclosure fillings than Georgia in December 2009 is Illinois. That isn't saying much about Georgia since Illinois has a population that is nearly three times that of Georgia but only 5,000 more foreclosure filings.

Sure everyone is more than anxious to hear the economy is showing real signs of improvement but the data as presented is just misleading at best. I'm from the school of thought that if you want to see real tried and true economic growth than two things will help -- government purchase orders and government regulations. Let's face it, history shows us that some of the most notable periods of economic growth were fueled by government purchasing (versus stimulus spending) and long overdue government regulations like say on the Big Banks that used credit default swaps to create the current Great Recession. So while the statistical decline in the jobless rate is good to hear, until you can show the hiring it hardly calls for celebration.