It is true,unquestionably, that the United States spends more as a share of its economy on healthcare than do most other countries. Why is that inherently problematic? The United States spends more on lots of goods and services than do other countries, and spends a lot less on some, too. Relatively speaking, the United States spends much more of its collective income on information technology, and much less on food, than do Haiti, Rwanda, or the alleged economic powerhouse that is the People's Republic of China for that matter.
Does that mean the Haitians and the Rwandans are getting a much better deal on their laptops and Internet routers than we are? Does it mean that Chinese peasants are eating better? Probably not. The truth is that, as societies become wealthier, it takes much less of their income to cover things like food and shelter; with much more disposable income to dispose of (and Americans, with our low savings rate, do dispose of our disposable income), wealthy societies will tend to consume more entertainment, travel, education, professional services, and the like. Healthcare is a service that is in very high demand-when you need it, you need it. Americans' high level of healthcare spending is not evidence that we are getting ripped off; it's evidence that we are a rich country.
Why would there be some metaphysically "correct"portion of GDP to spend on healthcare" The answer, of course, is that there isn't, just as there is no metaphysically correct level of spending on food, clothing, shelter, entertainment, bubblegum, campaign commercials, or any other item of consumption that might come to the interest of the powers in Washington.
One might as easily point out that the United States spends far more on education than do most other countries-significantly more than do Japan or Korea. And it would be difficult to argue convincingly that we are getting better results than the Japanese or the Koreans. But when it comes to education spending, the argument is precisely the opposite of that made for healthcare reform; no amount of spending on education ever is considered too much. It is impossible to imagine Barack Obama telling a joint session of Congress that we, as a nation, spend too much of our GDP on education, and that we should prune ourselves back to the level of spending seen in Singapore, which gets a very good education bang for its buck.
Why the discrepancy? The politics is obvious: US education consists of expropriating money from the private sector and transferring it to the public-since almost all education in the United States is public education. For healthcare the cash-flow vector is reversed: even before Obamacare, more than half of all U. S. healthcare spending was done by the government, but the parties cashing the checks are mostly private businesses: doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical medical-device manufacturers, and the like. President Obama is not going to tell the teachers unions that America is spending too much money on them, but he's happy to tell that to doctors and medicine-makers.
