David Orszag

How health-care inefficiencies are tanking the economy

ddobbs | February 8, 2009

The health-care system's maddening inefficiencies -- high per-capita spending with poorer overall health outcomes; tens of millions uninsured and tens of millions more underinsured; insane-making battles with insurers to get reimbursements you're entitled too -- are reason enough to spur reform. But "The Big Fix," David Leonhardt's marvelous-but-long piece on the fiscal crisis in last week's Times Magazine, argues that these inefficiencies are a) a prime example of a vested elite's ability to manipulate the economy for its own good and b) one of the most serious obstacles to the nation's…