Yep, the good folks at USA Today are it again. They have yet another really scary article on the trillions of dollars of debt that the United States government has incurred. The article not only fails to put the trillions in any context that would make it meaningful to readers (e.g. express it as a share of future income @ 7 percent), it goes out of its way to use a context that further misleads readers. It tells readers that the debt comes to $516,348 per household. That number would sound somewhat less scary if the article pointed out that by the same methodology, future income comes to more than $6 million per household. Of course, if the purpose of the article were to convery information, it would point out that the vast majority of this projected burden is attributable to the projected explosion in private sector health care costs. (This fact is noted in a quote from an analyst at the "liberal" Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.) The projections show that if health care costs continue on their projected trend, then it will bankrupt the economy. It will also be really bad for the budget. There is a powerful lobby (e.g. pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and doctors) that don't want to see the health care system reformed. The constituency for retire benefit programs is much less well organized. Therefore USA Today gives us stories like this beating up on retiree benefit programs and largely ignores the incredible inefficiency of the U.S. health care system.
--Dean Baker
