An Inconvenient Truth
This is Victor Fuchs, writing in the New England Journal of Medicine:
Over the past 30 years, U.S. health care expenditures have grown 2.8% per annum faster, on average, than the rest of the economy. If this differential continues for another 30 years, health care expenditures will absorb 30% of the gross domestic product – a proportion that exceeds that of current government spending for all purposes combined.
Full piece here. [gated, but with summary]
This implies that health care will crowd out every other function of government in just a few decades.
The trend will definitely continue unless someone is forced to choose between health care and other uses of money. But all we hear from Washington and the national news media is the opposite: that no one should ever have to choose bewteen health care and other uses of money.
Interesting that he doesn’t compare U.S. growth rates to those of other countries, both for health spending and growth in the economy. US health spending grows at about the OECD trend even if one doesn’t take differences in national accounting framework into account. Its historical economic growth rates tend to be higher.
Could it be that centralized control of health goes hand in hand with lower rates of income growth?
Just asking…