The Medical Money Pit | NYT | 4.15.05
A dozen years ago, everyone was talking about a health care crisis. But then the issue faded from view: a few years of good data led many people to conclude that H.M.O.’s and other innovations had ended the historic trend of rising medical costs.
But the pause in the growth of health care costs in the 1990’s proved temporary. Medical costs are once again rising rapidly, and our health care system is once again in crisis. …
health care for each man, woman and child in the population. Of this, $2,364, or 45 percent, was government spending, mainly on Medicare and Medicaid. Canada spent $2,931 per person, of which $2,048 came from the government. France spent $2,736 per person, of which $2,080 was government spending. …
The author suggests some explanations for the vast difference in costs, but who really knows? Next in the series “why the most privatized health care system in the advanced world is also the most bloated and bureaucratic.”
