Not quite a baby step

The Annointed One will speak to His people today about health care reform. Reducing the rate of growth of health care spending by 1.5% a year is a far less ambitious goal than what we really need, but at least it identifies the critical goal of health care reform: cost control.

When most people talk about health care reform they focus on side-issues, like government vs. private insurance. Folks, it doesn't matter whether the government takes money out of our paychecks to finance health care, or whether our employers take it out and pay it to a private insuror: no matter how we manage the logistics of payment, we are paying way too much for our health care.

Look at this comparison of health care spending per capita by country. Most developed countries are spending about $2-3,000 per year per citizen for health care. In the US, we're spending about double that. And it's not as if we're getting great value for what we spend, either: it's often stated that the US has "the best health care in the world," but when you compare actual health outcomes (like life expectancy, chronic disease, perinatal mortality), we rank near the bottom of the developed countries. Just one example, this graph shows the US ranking #22 in the world for "healthy years life expectancy" (the average number of active healthy years a baby born this year will live).

So, we're paying Rolls-Royce prices for health care, and getting Yugo quality outcomes. But wait: it gets worse. With the retirement of the baby boomers, annual US health care expenditures are expected to almost double by 2017.

Here is a scary graphic about how rising health care costs will affect financing for Social Security and Medicare:



And and even scarier one about what that will do to our overall national debt:



Containing health care costs, therefore, isn't a "private" vs. "socialized" issue, or just another spending issue for Democrats and Republicans to beat each other about the head with. Rising health care costs are arguably the greatest threat to our future prosperity. If you want your kids and grandkids to have a chance to live a lifestyle comparable to yours, this needs to be your number one issue.

Coming up next: some places to look for cost control in health care.