This is a familiar chart, health care spending as a percent of GDP for the OECD countries. I didn’t put this up to remind you that we spend a boatload more money than any other developed country on health care, rather there’s a couple interesting relationships that are kind of interesting. First, note the flat […]
Posts Tagged ‘health care’
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Lenin, Health Care And Education
Posted by Tom Lindmark on April 9th, 2011
An interesting take on education and health care by Arnold Kling: Mark Whitehouse of the WSJ blog writes, Annual public and private health-care spending in the U.S. stands at $7,538 per person, 2.41 times the OECD average and 51% more than the second-biggest spender, Norway. Meanwhile, average U.S. life expectancy is 77.9 years, less than […]
The Unassailable Math Of Health Care
Posted by Tom Lindmark on March 3rd, 2011
OK, I know you are sick to the point of nausea of hearing that the solution to America’s fiscal problems lies in controlling health expenditures. Unfortunately it’s true as this graph from John Hempton makes strikingly clear. As John points out there is one hell of a lot of room to squeeze down expenditures without […]
Cosmetic Surgery And Price Competition
Posted by Tom Lindmark on December 11th, 2010
David Henderson points to this graph to illustrate the effect of competition on the cost of medical services. The point is that cosmetic services are rarely covered by insurance. Consumers of these services tend to pay most of the cost out-of-pocket which has served to introduce a measure of price stability not seen in other […]
Can You Figure Out This Puzzle
Posted by Tom Lindmark on December 1st, 2010
Tyler Cowen posted this graph of health care expenses as a percentage of GDP today and asked “What happened in 1980?” I’d ask not only what happened but why did it apparently cause U.S. expenditures to continue rising at a rate in excess of other economies’? Anyone care to offer some thoughts on this one?
Sebelius Threatens
Posted by Tom Lindmark on September 13th, 2010
Last week Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius took the health insurance to task for not only raising premiums but for intimating that the Affordable Care Act was one of the reasons for the rate increase. It has come to my attention that several health insurer carriers are sending letters to their enrollees falsely […]
Labor Stakes Out Its Position On Healthcare
Posted by Tom Lindmark on September 1st, 2009
Big labor laid down its demands for health care today and they aren’t shy about what they want or what will happen if they don’t get it. From Politico.com: “Democratic lawmakers will not be able to count on the AFL-CIO‘s support if they drop the public insurance option from the health care reform legislation, union officials […]
