American Health Economy Illustrated

This data-driven and eye-opening guide to the US healthcare system, illustrated with hundreds of color charts, tackles the biggest questions in health policy and health economics, from what Americans really spend on care and how Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance shape costs, to whether spending is sustainable, how states and other developed nations compare, and how poverty and medical innovation factor in, as Christopher Conover sifts nearly a century of data to debunk the myths driving the debate over the future of American healthcare.

How much does the average American spend on health care? Are costs and quality of health care equal across US states? Do Americans get good value for money spent on health services compared with citizens of other developed nations? Are current health spending trends sustainable through the 21st century? All too often, policymakers and the public alike form judgments about health care based on myths and misconceptions. A common refrain is that US health care is too expensive — both in costs to the taxpayer and costs to the consumer. But few realize that despite its lack of national health insurance, the United States leads nearly all other industrialized nations in the share of health spending paid by third parties, whether public or private. Americans, therefore, are less sensitive to health care prices than citizens of other nations. American Health Economy Illustrated sifts through nearly a century of data to examine — and debunk — the most common myths about the US health care system. With an unbiased, just-the-facts approach and hundreds of color illustrations, Christopher J. Conover assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the current system and evaluates whether current health cost trends are sustainable. Wide-ranging, accessible, and provocative, this book is a must-read for anyone concerned with the future of American health care.

Christopher Conover is a research scholoar at the Center for Health Policy and Health Inequalities Program at Duke University and an adjunct scholar at American Enterprise Institute.