Before we Solve Our Medical Crisis, We Should Consider our Economy

   I get ahead of myself. I worry what will become of our economy if we truly correct our health care industry.
   The health care industry accounts for more than 10 percent of our gross domestic product (in one article, I read that it is 16.9 percent). That represents a lot of jobs. How many health-care workers are there? Thirteen million?
   If we were to reduce the cost of health care -- which seems to me a thing we surely must do -- how many jobs would be lost? If you took my ideas on how to reduce costs, the medical insurance industry would be decimated. How many work in the insurance industry? Two-point-five million? (That is the whole of the industry, including auto insurance, etc.)
    Whenever you are going to displace that many people, you should go forward only if you are creating other jobs for them to land in.
    I suggest that correcting our health industry -- inasmuch as such correction is going to greatly affect the economy --- should only come after we have reconsidered what type of economy we want to have. I would have us have an economy that sidesteps depressions and recessions. And, noting that it is when people are unemployed and unfed that the economy is at its deepest low point, I would suggest that rather than seeking to keep our GNP high, and our stock markets high, and our rich rich, the first priority should be to keep everyone employed.