Anyone know if health care spending rose precipitously after Medicare

[Narkos]

was introduced?

[ejpoeta]

1. i was not around then, but i do not believe so. i think i had heard that

privatization of hospitals and other healthcare things started that rise... but i don't know how true that is either.

[Juche]

2. We started shooting away from the rest of the world in the late 1970s

So that can't be the reason. In the mid 70s our healthcare was comparable to the rest of the OECD nations in regards to % of GDP. Now it is almost double them.

[FormerDittoHead]

3. Medical care in general went up.

The answer is yes, but consider the years and the technology and operations that have been developed since.

I remember when the first heart transplant was done (first done with baboon hearts - I was just a kid and I remember this stuff).

The kind of operations they have now, joint replacements, etc., were unheard of at the time.

And I'm sure there's a big-ass spike in the costs when Reagan privatized hospitals.

And let's not forget about the baby boom in general.

While Medicare doesn't pay 'retail' neither do regular insurers. So the argument that it forces hospitals to offload bills to non-Medicare patients is dubious.

But it's complicated, and I personally think that single payer is the most simple, obvious solution.