American Health Care What a waste

Last year, when he was still the head of the independent Congressional Budget Office, Peter Orszag used to warn bleakly that the rising costs of health care would, if not subjected to radical reform, one day bankrupt the government. Over the past few decades, these costs have risen at a consistent 2.5 percentage points above the growth rate of the economy. Projected out to 2050, he reckoned, Medicare and Medicaid (the government schemes that insure the elderly and the poor) would together consume some 20% of America’s GDP, almost as much as the entire federal budget of today.