What is PHAN’s analysis of our health care crisis?
Our health care system is the most expensive in the world. Yet as a system, it fails to provide the best health care in the world. Evidence of this can be found in our life expectancy, which is shorter than people living in other advanced economies. Medical costs currently consume 16-17 percent of our national income and are expected to grow to 20 percent by 2015. This has become a heavy economic burden that adds significantly to the cost of virtually every product and transaction in our economy. Some employers are trying to shed this cost by shifting the cost of health insurance to their employees or by abandoning health insurance coverage altogether. Thus, a growing percentage of people living in the United States are uninsured. Why is health care so expensive without achieving better outcomes? Here are key factors. • We expect a lot, including all the latest technologies, procedures, and pharmaceuticals. • In our decentralized system, medical providers have been slow to implement me
