Our fiscal future is so dominated by healthcare that if the US can slow the rate of cost growth by just 15 basis points a year (0.15 percentage points), the savings for Medicare and Medicaid would equal the impact from eliminating Social Security’s entire 75-year shortfall. If we slow the rate of healthcare cost growth by 1.5 percentage points per year, by 2030 we could reduce the federal budget deficit by 2.5 per cent of GDP, which is about $350bn relative to today’s economy.
Peter Orszag: A plan to boost America’s fiscal health (via mattlehrer) (via mikehudack)
Of course. Some people forget that damn near one in every five dollars in America is spent on healthcare that costs twice as much as it should because those who profit off healthcare are paid to do and produce as much as they possibly can. It’s not only a financial concern, it’s a social and ethical problem. As a whole, our profession and our industry have taken advantage of our nation’s blank checkbook. We need to get back to the ethical practice of medicine. We need to start doing what’s right, not doing twice as much as we should.