Friday, September 3, 2010

Healthcare as an economic driver

Reprinted from my posting to Politico's Arena:

It’s noteworthy that of the 67,000 new jobs created in August, 28,000 were created in the  healthcare sector--that’s 42 percent of the total.  Intuitively, we know healthcare is a natural economic engine--we have an aging population, desirous of more medical services.  And all that cash sitting on the sidelines, waiting to buy something worth buying!

Indeed, since most affluent countries around the world share the same graying demographic, so if the US had wanted to, we could have expanded our healthcare sector to better serve the world--and thereby expanded jobs on the homefront.  

In other words, we could be seeing a lot more job growth in the health sector than we are. And yet curiously, the Obama administration spent the first 14 months of its existence pushing for healthcare insurance, which, by its own declaration, was aimed at reducing costs--that is, shrinking the healthcare sector.  As Obama himself said in July 2009, his “bottom lines” were two: “Does this bill cover all Americans?  Does it drive down costs in the public and private sector over the long term?”

Despite Obamacare’s best efforts at rationing--which, admittedly, are just getting started--healthcare is still a growth sector.   But US healthcare is much smaller today than it would have been if the natural forces driving its growth had been encouraged and channeled toward productive technological improvement, e.g. better medicine and cures.  If Obama had gone that Hamiltonian route, his healthcare plan would, of course, have been much different--and much more popular.  And, in addition, it would be driving a much stronger economic recovery.

3 comments:

  1. Very nice and informative article. Thanks you for sharing.

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  2. As you meant that Obama tried his best to cut down the costs and cover most of Americans which lead to shrinking of the Health sector.it helped people but still their is much growth in this sector

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