Many people state health care costs as 2.2 trillion, and 16% of GDP, including the Kaiser Foundation. However, when I go to Table 3A of http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm
health care in 2008 accounts for 1.5 trillion out of a GDP 14.4 trillion or about 11% (not too far off from other nations).
Where do people get their data from?
I went to the http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/ web site, and while I can reconstruct the popular numbers from their site, they leave me even more puzzled. The GDP numbers for 2007 do not match the BEA. Off by at least a trillion, depending on Net or Gross DP. In addition, the BEA makes it clear that it is not counting Social Security or Medicare/Medicaid under Government consumption. So they must include it all under personal consumption.
The BEA percentage of health care over GDP has been pretty constant over the last decade, around 11%. The HHS data shows it jumping 3 point, to 16% during the same stretch. What's more, it made me realize that 50 years ago it supposedly was at 5% mark(HHS). Made me wonder why we don't hear an explanation of how we did it back then (forget the Canadians).
In other words, it seems very much like whoever counts gets whatever results they desire. Now I have double the evidence that all the numbers are suspect.
Disappointing. Especially since I used Kaiser Foundation numbers from an age stratified cost per year chart, and figured out that "prevention" was bullshit. Excuse my language. Healthy living adds costs to the flat part of the bathtub curve, merely deferring the end-of-life costs. So "whole life cost" goes up with longer lives. There will be no bending of the cost curve as long as longevity increases.
I suppose politicizing numbers shouldn't surprise me. But better orchestration would help.
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