The importance of health

While the headlines have been full of the financial crisis, and the monster $700bn bank bailout, health care continues to be a key story in the US, which spends approximately 16% of GDP annually on health care but achieves poor average outcomes. If the US could reduce its health care spending to the levels of other OECD countries, it would save approximately $700bn per year, enough to pay for a bank bailout every year, without compromising average health outcomes... There are some very large potential gains the Democrats can harvest.