USA Today had an article this morning on rising U.S. health care costs. It never mentions the fact that the United States pays more than twice as much per person as the average among other wealthy countries, yet has shorter life expectancies. I guess we can attribute this to protectionism. There are enormous potential gains from trade in the health care sector (if we can’t do it right here, why not let people go elsewhere), but the media is so protectionist, it won’t even allow the possibility to be discussed.
–Dean Baker
