USA Today listed several items that gave readers a basis for assessing the size of the $1 trillion health care bill being debated in the House. It would have been useful to compare the cost to projected GDP over the decade. GDP is projected to be approximately $190 trillion over the next decade. This means that the cost will be approximately 0.5 percent of projected GDP. By contrast, the combined cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars have been close to 1.0 percent of GDP. This means that the health care bill will cost approximately half as much as the Iraq War.
--Dean Baker
