“The tapeworm of American economic competitiveness”
Today’s quiz:
- What rose from 5% of U.S. GDP in 1960 to 17% today?
- What fell from 4% of U.S. GDP in 1960 to 2% today?
Answers:
- Health care costs.
- Corporate taxes.
Extra credit question: Which one’s a drag on the competitiveness of the U.S. economy?
Here’s Warren Buffett’s answer:
“Medical costs are the tapeworm of American economic competitiveness,” Mr. Buffett said, using a metaphor he has employed in the past to describe the insidious and parasitic costs of our health care system….
Mr. Buffett is a Democrat, but his business partner, Charles T. Munger, is a Republican — and a rare one who has advocated a single-payer health care system. Under his plan, which Mr. Buffett agrees with, the United States would enact a sort of universal type of coverage for all citizens — perhaps along the lines of the Medicaid system — with an opt-out provision that would allow the wealthy to still get concierge medicine.
Read more here.
