Likelihood of Success

Craig S. Karpel states something so obvious that everyone is operating on the exact opposite presumption:

Americans are being urged to worry about the nation spending 17% of its gross domestic product each year on health care—a higher percentage than any other country. Addressing the American Medical Association in June, Barack Obama said, “Make no mistake: The cost of our health care is a threat to our economy.” But the president is mistaken. Japan spends 8% of its GDP on health care—the same as Zimbabwe. South Korea and Haiti both spend 6%. Monaco spends 5%, which is what Afghanistan spends. Do all of these countries have economies that are less “threatened” than that of the U.S.? . . .

The U.S. health-care economy should be viewed not as a burden but as an engine of growth. Medical and orthopedic equipment exports increased by 65.1% from 2004 through 2008. Pharmaceutical exports were up 74.6%. The unprecedented advances expected to come out of American stem cell, nanotechnology and human genome research—which other countries’ constricted health sectors cannot support—will send these already impressive figures skyward.

Craig explains how we forget the fact that after food and shelter — which, incidentally, though they are more important than health care, the government does not manage or provide for the vast majority of us — health care is the most important thing we should spend money on, if not dying is on the agenda.

The problem is, however, that health care is a lot like plumbing or, as I have learned, legal services:  No one enjoys spending money on fixing something just so it will stop being broke and go back to just plain working as it did before.  This is premised on a common enough, but utterly mistaken, view of the universe that does not account for the fact that everything in the physical world requires maintenance, investment and attention over its usable life in order to keep working.  In fact, it is a cost of doing business, not an unfair imposition on us, to lay out what it costs for clear good pipes, good legal and financial situations and good medical care.   And while that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t shop around, you are going to get what you pay for.

As long as you’re still allowed to shop around, that is.

Craig will be interviewed today on Fox News Network by Neil Cavuto. l The show is on from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. Eastern; he’ll be on at about 4:05.  You can watch online here.