Comparing Ryan's Medicare Plan to What Congress Gets - Uwe E. Reinhardt - NYTimes.com

Comparing Ryan's Medicare Plan to What Congress Gets - Uwe E. Reinhardt - NYTimes.com

Of particular note to Common Sense in this interesting article is the central notion that in the US medical cost consistently grow much faster than the consumer price index.  Certainly medical care is expensive, particularly for cutting edge procedures.   But why should it's cost grow two or three times faster than the CPI?

The cost growth of health care is particularly hard to justify given its performance.  Consider that in 2006, the United States was number 1 in terms of health care spending per capita but ranked 39th for infant mortality, 43rd for adult female mortality, 42nd for adult male mortality, and 36th for life expectancy.  Clearly the US health care system is hardly one where costs and results are not reasonably related!  Clearly it is one that is simply not competitive! 

Common Sense thinks that health care is one of those things where free market principles simply don't work.  Consider that in New Hampshire the cost of a routine office visit varies by a factor of 4 between $49 and $200 with the majority of providers charging in the neighborhood of $100.  There is such a dramatic cost difference for medical services between the US and other countries that there is now a "medical tourism" industry! 

Common Sense thinks that we should focus much more attention on why medical care in the US cost so much and rather less on how we pay an essentially unreasonable bill for services that are not effective when judged by world standards!