Introduction

Probably the most important and simplest way to appreciate the high cost of health care in the United States is to compare it with costs in other high income democracies. The first three papers and the op-ed in Part 4 make such comparisons. In the U.S., health care consumes approximately 18 percent of the GDP; in other high spending countries, the share is approximately 12 percent. Given U.S. GDP of over $18 trillion, the extra spending in the U.S. amounts to more than one trillion dollars per year. This excess is far more than the U.S. spends on national security or on education. It amounts to more than $3,000 per man, woman, and child, or about $10,000 per three-person household. In my opinion, there are no more important tasks for health economics and health policy than to determine what the public derives from this extra spending, evaluate it, and explain why the U.S. has a system that generates such high spending…