Healthcare is on my mind, in part because I have spent much of the last two weeks looking after my husband following a serious operation on his spine. We were lucky — he had a great doctor, and we have good health insurance.
But whenever I spend time in the US healthcare system, I come away thinking what a quagmire of waste and misaligned incentives it is. I believe that’s because the last half century of financialisation within the industry has taken it from being a largely charitable service to a fat private market, ripe for exploitation.
As with so many things, Americans get both the best and the worst of healthcare. We have access to the most cutting edge treatments (for those who can afford it). We also have a system in which two-thirds of the people who declare bankruptcy do so in part because of medical costs, even after the passing of the Affordable Healthcare Act (aka Obamacare). And, as everyone knows, the US spends far more than most of the world on healthcare, but receives only middling outcomes by OECD standards.