Economist blog post on Health care:
Peter Orszag reminds us that the real deficit threat comes not from bail-outs, wars, or Social Security, but from health care. Medicare is set to become a drain on federal finances by 2017. If health-care costs continue to grow at the same rate, the cost of Medicare and Medicaid will be 20% of GDP by 2050. American health care is a model of inefficiency; there appears to be little correlation between spending and outcomes.
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In hindsight there seems something rather perverse about only providing the best care to retired workers. In theory, the government should make private insurance cheaper for everyone else because then the young won’t have to subsidise (at least through their health-care premiums) the old. The main problem, which European countries have learned, is that sustainable, government-provided care and timely access to the most innovative treatments tends to be mutually exclusive.
…
In hindsight there seems something rather perverse about only providing the best care to retired workers. In theory, the government should make private insurance cheaper for everyone else because then the young won’t have to subsidise (at least through their health-care premiums) the old. The main problem, which European countries have learned, is that sustainable, government-provided care and timely access to the most innovative treatments tends to be mutually exclusive.
Related: Many Experts Say Health-Care System Inefficient, Wasteful – Improving the Health Care System – USA Spent $2.2 Trillion, 16.2% of GDP, on Health Care in 2007