A few days ago, the New York Times (here) reported that the CEO of United Health Care (the US largest insurance company) was shot and killed on the street in New York City. A large manhunt is underway trying to find the shooter. The motives remain unclear. However, the assassination has brought to the surface wide discontent with the US Healthcare system (the shooter had written the words "delay," "deny," and "depose" on shell casing found at the scene).
Until we know more about the shooting and until the Trump II Administration takes office (promising, at minimum, to change the system), what do the data on US Healthcare expenditures say about the system. Comparing countries, the US HC System is the most expensive in the World due to higher medical prices in the US. From the historical data in the graphic above, the curve of US Health expenditures peaked sometime before the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020.
After 2020, my state space models generate these projections: (1) If Healthcare (HC) expenditures keep pace with government health care expenditures (the black line in the figure above), expenditures will peak at a high level sometime after 2020. (2) If HC expenditures are driven by the World system (WL20) or the US system (USL20), they will continue to decline until well after 2020.
The Trump II Administration, scheduled to take office in early 2025, seems to favor privatizing the entire system which in some way might not be very different from the current system and might well be worse if providers are allowed to charge whatever they want for procedures and medicines.
Notes
SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS is taken from the World Development Indicators and standardized.
My recommendation is to control the US Healthcare system with policy wedges similar to proposals to control CO2 Emissions with policy wedges.
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