Washington Post Columnist Looks at High Costs in U.S. Health Care System

The reason that the U.S. health care system has proven to be "so resistant to change is that lots of powerful interests do very nicely with things just the way they are," Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein writes in an opinion piece, adding, "Although doctors, hospitals, insurers and drug companies say they, too, want things to change, any comprehensive reform would reduce their incomes and their profits." Pearlstein cites a study "released without fanfare last month" by McKinsey Global Institute that "aimed to determine why the United States spends nearly double the average of other industrialized countries on health care -- with no better, and in some cases inferior, medical outcomes." The study found that compared with other nations, excess costs in the U.S. health care system "works out to 3.6% of the nation's entire economic output, or $1,645 per person, every year," Pearlstein writes. The study identified higher spending in the U.S. on payments for physician services, hospital stays and prescription drugs, as well as the cost of administering the private portions of the U.S. health insurance system, according to Pearlstein. He writes that "any effort to reduce these excess costs faces determined opposition from well-financed lobbies, which is why many reformers prefer to focus on the goal of extending coverage to the 47 million Americans who don't have health insurance." Pearlstein concludes, "But doing the one without the other, the McKinsey researchers warn, would be economic folly. Offering universal coverage without reining in costs would add another $77 billion each year in unnecessary and unproductive health spending" (Pearlstein, Washington Post, 2/14).