“The U.S. federal government is on an unsustainable fiscal path. … The thing that drives our single unsustainability is health care spending.
“We spend 17 percent of GDP; everyone else spends 10 percent. … It’s not that benefits themselves are too generous. We deliver them in inefficient ways.”
You might guess that Sen. Bernie Sanders said this, but it was actually Jerome Powell, Federal Reserve Board chairman. Could that extra 7 percent of GDP be spent on providing services to patients, rather than on CEO salaries, excessive drug prices, middleman services and shareholders?
Health care costs were at the top of voters’ concerns according to exit polls during the 2018 elections. The League of Women Voters of the Triad’s Healthcare Roundtable is working to prepare voters for candidates’ proposals related to delivering health care services so that they would be universally available to our population. On March 26 at 7:30 p.m. in Greensboro, Jonathan Oberlander, Ph.D., professor at the University of North Carolina, will present “Unfinished Journey: The Future of Health Care Reform” at Union Square Campus at 124 E. Gate City Blvd. Attendance is open and free to the public.
Let’s figure out how to provide effective health care to everyone.
Wayne Hale, M.D.
Greensboro
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