Health Care Spending: A Few Inconvenient Truths
As we look into new ways of ensuring that all Americans have access to affordable health care, there are a few inconvenient truths that must be taken into account. Carolyn Johnson recently reported in The Washington Post, that ‘the top 1 percent of health-care spenders use more resources, collectively, than the bottom 75 percent’. Or, looking at the data another way, ‘the bottom half of spenders all together rack up only about 3 percent of overall health care spending’. So, in moving forward with health care reform we must recognize this decades long pattern of health care expenditures in the United States. In short, a small percentage of us account for the vast majority of healthcare spending, while most of us use minimal health care resources and are well satisfied with the care we receive.