Ezra Klein warns that if nothing is done to control the cost of health care, in 20 years we’ll be spending 26.7% of our GDP on it. Is that all? I was thinking the figure would be much higher. … P.S.: I suppose it depends on what we get for 26.7% of GDP. But if expensive medical advances added a year or two to my life, I’d be happy to fork over a quarter of my income. Wouldn’t you? … P.P.S.: The Obamist Party Line on universal health care–that we have to scare everyone into thinking we need it to control costs–has always seemed ill-advised, given that we’ve never been able to control health care costs before. And it plays into conservative arguments that liberals really want to meddle in medical decisions and ultimately deny treatment. Now it turns out the O.P.L. health cost scare stats aren’t really even that scary.
As I’ve mentioned before, my biggest worry is that Obamacare will kill health care innovation just as it’s becoming really, really promising. Well, that and the part about denying chemotherapy for people Obama doesn’t like. [Rattner was just joking about doing that. — ed. Ha ha.]