December 9, 2009- Interviewed by Steven Greer, MD
The consensus among government budget forecasters such as the CBO is that the current growth rate of healthcare spending will continue and result in healthcare becoming 30% of the GDP. It is not well appreciated that the CBO is often very inaccurate because the models their staff use incorporate past or current growth estimates in perpetuity. In contrast, Wall Street financial analysts are paid to make the tough judgment calls that tweak future-year growth estimates based on fundamental analysis.
With the various healthcare reform proposals being “scored” by the CBO now, the issue of whether healthcare will indeed balloon out of control is of vital importance. The HCC interviewed Harvard economics professor David Cutler who takes a contrarian view that healthcare spending will slow and perhaps decrease due to a variety of factors.