Halfway to National Health Care
As a new contribution to a growing series of articles describing the shift in health care financing from employers to government, Daniel Gross in the December 3 NY Times contributes a piece entitled "National Health Care? We're Halfway There."
Quoting extensively from Thomas M. Selden of AHRQ, Gross points out that the tax subsidy for employment-related coverage is over $200 billion in 2006 - 35% of the amount spent on premiums. In comparison, Medicare spending was $380m and federal spending on Medicaid was $180 billion (not clear that includes state spending). Total public expenditures in 2004 accounted for $888b of the $1.96 trillion spent on health care in that year. Adding premiums paid for public-sector employees, and the total federal expenditure is $1.2 trillion - 61% of the total expenditures.
One of the best resources for related information and what it means is the work of Jacob Hacker. His work is most easily accessed via:
His site has an interactive blogger, facts, white papers, and many other supporting documents.
His proposal for expanding Medicare can be accessed through his Yale site.
Graphic from the December 3 NY Times article by David Gross:
Quoting extensively from Thomas M. Selden of AHRQ, Gross points out that the tax subsidy for employment-related coverage is over $200 billion in 2006 - 35% of the amount spent on premiums. In comparison, Medicare spending was $380m and federal spending on Medicaid was $180 billion (not clear that includes state spending). Total public expenditures in 2004 accounted for $888b of the $1.96 trillion spent on health care in that year. Adding premiums paid for public-sector employees, and the total federal expenditure is $1.2 trillion - 61% of the total expenditures.
One of the best resources for related information and what it means is the work of Jacob Hacker. His work is most easily accessed via:
His site has an interactive blogger, facts, white papers, and many other supporting documents.
His proposal for expanding Medicare can be accessed through his Yale site.
Graphic from the December 3 NY Times article by David Gross:
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