Better Red than Dead?
When medical expenses constituted only a small percentage of income, as was typically the case 50 years ago, an egalitarian approach to health care was a small extravagance. But, as societies spend ever-larger fractions of their income on health, support will become fragile.
Will the inexorable rise in medical costs around the world someday pose a major challenge to contemporary capitalism? I submit that in the not-so-distant future, moral, social, and political support for capitalism will be severely tested as would-be egalitarian health systems face ever-rising costs.
Rising incomes, population aging, and new technologies for extending and enhancing life, have caused health costs to rise 3.5% faster than overall income for many decades now in the United States. Some leading economists project that health expenditures, which already constitute 16% of the US economy, will rise to 30% of GDP by 2030, and perhaps approach 50% later in the century. Other rich and middle-income countries, although typically spending only half what the US does today, won’t lag far behind.
Countries in Europe and elsewhere have shielded their citizens from a part of this rise by piggybacking on US technological advances. Ultimately, though, they face the same upward cost pressures.
Will the inexorable rise in medical costs around the world someday pose a major challenge to contemporary capitalism? I submit that in the not-so-distant future, moral, social, and political support for capitalism will be severely tested as would-be egalitarian health systems face ever-rising costs.
Rising incomes, population aging, and new technologies for extending and enhancing life, have caused health costs to rise 3.5% faster than overall income for many decades now in the United States. Some leading economists project that health expenditures, which already constitute 16% of the US economy, will rise to 30% of GDP by 2030, and perhaps approach 50% later in the century. Other rich and middle-income countries, although typically spending only half what the US does today, won’t lag far behind.
Countries in Europe and elsewhere have shielded their citizens from a part of this rise by piggybacking on US technological advances. Ultimately, though, they face the same upward cost pressures.