Samuelson’s health care realism
September 18th, 2008 | by Brian Schwartz |Some gems from Robert Samuelson’s Washington Post column:
The central health-care problem is not improving coverage. It’s controlling costs. In 1960, health care accounted for $1 of every $20 spent in the U.S. economy; now that’s $1 of every $6, and the Congressional Budget Office projects that it could be $1 of every $4 by 2025. Ponder that: a quarter of the U.S. economy devoted to health care. Would we be better off? Probably not. Countless studies have shown that many tests, surgeries and medical devices are either ineffective or unneeded. … For workers, increasingly expensive insurance depresses take-home pay as employers funnel more compensation dollars into coverage. There’s also a massive and undesirable income transfer from the young to the old, accomplished through taxes and the cross-subsidies of private insurance, because the old are the biggest users of medical care. …
There is a basic dilemma that most Americans refuse to acknowledge. What we all want for ourselves and our families — access to unlimited care paid for by someone else — may be ruinous for us as a society.
(Via EconLog)
