Healthcare Costs Take Big Bite From Economy -(Single Payer Nat'l Health?)

[papau]

U.S. health spending per person is twice the average of such spending in Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Britain — countries that guarantee healthcare for all their citizens - so is it time for the concept of national health insurance along the lines of the Canadian or European systems?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-health9feb09.story

Healthcare Costs Take Big Bite From Economy
Report finds spending eats up 24% of recent growth, far outpacing defense and education.
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar
Times Staff Writer

February 9, 2005

WASHINGTON — Increased spending for healthcare is gobbling up about one-quarter of the growth in the economy, and health-related items now amount to more than three times the defense budget and twice what the nation devotes to education, a report released today concludes.

The study by researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health comes as the Bush administration and lawmakers of both parties cautiously are trying to restart a national debate on how to rein in costs and cover an estimated 45 million Americans who lack health insurance.

President Bush has outlined a strategy under which individuals would assume control of their own costs, but the report questioned whether that would be feasible.

"The rapid rise in health spending has been absorbing nearly one-fourth of the economy's growth, a very disproportionate share," wrote co-authors Alan Sager and Deborah Socolar.

"That limits the ability of the nation's families, employers and government to pay for education, housing, new machinery … cleaning the environment, improving criminal justice, vacations or anything else they might hope to afford."

Spending on healthcare will grow to $1.9 trillion this year, an increase of $621 billion from 2000, the report estimated. That would account for a little over 24% of the expected increase in the nation's gross domestic product from 2000 to 2005. Increased defense spending, by comparison, would only account for 10% of the growth in GDP over the same period.<snip>


The report is available on the Internet at http://www.healthreformprogram.org .