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Health Care and The Macroeconomics of Recessions

healthcarespendingDid you know the US spends nearly twice as much on health care as the rest of the world, yet public spending on health care is about the same in the US  (about 8% of GDP) as it is in Canada, the UK, and the other OECD countries?

The big differences is the rest of the world covers nearly 100% of their populations with that amount, while the US covers only 25% of its population.
[the] key structural reform that would significantly help the economy—the labor market and also the long-run budget deficit—would be to reform the health-care sector......... I think the link of health care to the employment relationship is probably really hurting the labor market right now.

At least so says Valerie Ramey, Economist at UCSD.

All this and a whole lot more from a discussion headed by Brad DeLong on The Macroeconomics of Recessions. It's a hard read, but a there's a lot of valuable information.

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