Friday, July 13, 2007

Health Care Facts 1: 44 Percent

I've been reading Who Killed Health Care?, which is a very insightful and readable look at our health care system.

The first page of chapter 1 offers two interesting facts. One, health care spending is huge: at $2 trillion per year, it's as large as the economy of China. Yeah, that country from which we import just about everything these days.

That's significant enough, but consider another point: In 2004, we paid for 44 percent of that amount through government spending.

Something that large, paid for (and in many cases run by) bureaucracies that have little economic incentive to respond to consumers? No wonder why there's a lot of dissatisfaction!