The Real Healthcare “Chart of the Day”

The Real Healthcare “Chart of the Day”

Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell

Andrew Sullivan posted the following chart, which he found in National Geographic, and he noted, with considerable justification, that this was evidence of an insane and inefficient health care system in America.

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If he really wanted a chart that captures what’s wrong with America’s health care system, he should have gone to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ national health expenditures data website and downloaded the figures showing how rampant third-party payment has resulted in consumers directly paying for less than 12 percent of health care costs. And when people are purchasing something with (what is perceived to be) other people’s money, it’s understandable that they don’t pay much attention to cost. My homemade chart does not compared to the one produced by National Geographic, but it does identify the real problem. Sadly, Obama’s plan (like Bush’s Medicare expansion, and everything else politicians have done for the past 50 years) will exacerbate the third-party payment problem and lead to even higher costs and more inefficiency.

- more at www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/12/28/the-real-healthcare-chart-of-the-day/