Will Saving on Health Care Hurt the Economy?

While the government is concerning about the expansiveness of Health Care program, the article raised an issue about Health Care and the economy:

 

Binyamin talked about how the recession has affected negatively on Health Care industry. In particular he mentioned the health care payroll grew at 1.4% - 1 percentage point lower than the annual average in the decade fore recession. Price was also rising more slowly. According to him, this slow growth pulled back the economy by first, cutting the employment in health care industry, and second, cutting the spending in everyone's pocket. He especially made an argument about how inflation is good for the economy (of course his intention was referring to the health care inflation - thus he was making the point that the low inflation in health care was affecting negatively to the economy). He referred that some economist thought :"We’re spending less on health care because we’re spending less on everything."

First it is about the program. It has been growing too large too fast, I think. Government has spent ~5% of GDP in 1960s to 17.4% of GDP in 2009. This, of course makes the whole industry blossom, and increase the employments in Health care industry drastically. However, what is the output come out from that spending? If the population's health quality is not increasing at same pace, government probably have spent too much, there're probably more doctors and nurses and hospitals and meds than needed. Thus, it is time to cut back on those that's unnecessary (just like how the stock market was inflated due to irrational behavior of investors and it had to correct itself by a down turn). It may not look good in short term, but in long term, a more stable and effective health care system is better than an inflated one. 

And secondly I want to mention something about that health care inflation. We're spending less on health care may be because we are taking good care of our health because it is very expansive to pay for health care in the U.S. Really ... spending a lot on health care is not something to be proud of Mr. Appelbaum.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/sunday-review/will-saving-on-health-care-hurt-the-economy.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0