The Legend of Health Care
Once upon a time, in a kingdom by the sea, broad consensus has been reached, which seems rather weird nowadays. America, you see, was spending too much money on health care for too little in return. We spent almost twenty percent of our GDP on health care, which was much more than any other developed country in the world, but our health outcomes were middling at best. And the costs just kept rising. Something had to be done before health care terminally crowded out every other public need. The Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, was that something. It was supposed to �bend the cost curve� and everybody was supposed to learn that �less is more�. And so the nation rolled up its sleeves and got to work. Insurance companies were supposed to limit their administrative waste and tightly mange care. Hospitals were supposed to bundle and warrant episodes of care. Doctors were burning out trying hard to cut the volumes of their expensive services, while exercising stewardship of scarce resources (i...