Vital Signs of Health Care

You're watching movies trying to find the feelers
You only see what we show you
We're the slaves of the phony leaders
Breath the air we have blown you
--The Who

A couple of useful reference slides related to health care. First, national health care spending has tripled from about 6% of GDP in the mid 1960s to about 17% today.

Second, for those who believe the US health care system is based on 'free market' economics, they need to review how much spending come from government sources. Current, Medicare, Medicaid, and other public sources account for about 45% of national health care spending.

One data point that's missing, and one that proponents of government sponsored health care don't want to show, is a time series showing the increasing fraction of government sourced health expenditures over time.

Over the past 100 yrs, government health expenditures have gone from low levels (covering war vets and gov't employees) to nearly half of the overall health spending pie today.

It should be no mystery, then, why health care expenditures consume 3x the GDP that they did 40+ yrs ago. State intervention has broadened access and scope of coverage, thus more resources are consumed thru health care channels. Plus, the inevitable State bureaucracy has constrained efficiency and innovation.

Yet, here we are considering even greater State influence over this system.