US Health Care

For the past four years in the United States health care has dominated Washington politics. Many Americans, including mainstream commentators and partisans on the left and right, claim that the current health care system in this country is broken. What, exactly,  is broken? And  what can be done to repair it?

            Two charts are often cited as evidence of a broken health care system. Americans spend significantly more on health care and achieve results that are similar to countries spending less (1). Also, as a percent of GDP, health care spending eats up more than 15% of total spending, which ranks highest (2). And despite all that we spend on health care, we do not manage to provide health insurance to all.  Millions of Americans remain uninsured.

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Where to begin? I think it is important to review some fundamentals of Economics. First, we live in a world of scarcity. There is only so much health care to go around. Currently, our country allocates health care in a very inefficient manner. And second, all decisions we make require trade offs. While simple ideas, sometimes it seems like people forget these Econ 101 concepts. I think that a rational way to approach this issue involves us pursuing policies that will allow us to maximize our strengths, while simultaneously reducing costs and making health insurance readily available to all. In future posts, I will explore many of the issues that surround this hot button issue.    

What, in your opinion, is a strength of the American health care system? And what stands out to you as dysfunctional?

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