American healthcare is ridiculously expensive. I even wrote a book recently laying out a host of reasons for such high prices, such as the historical connection between insurance and hospitals, the lack of price transparency, and the belated involvement of our federal government in healthcare policies.
But mainly it comes down to the power of hospitals, physicians, and the rest of the healthcare industry to co-opt almost a fifth of our economy. Recent data on healthcare lobbying perfectly illustrates just how much power I’m talking about.
The data comes from an article in JAMA Internal Medicine written by Olivier Wouters, a London-based researcher who I have to imagine is bewildered by the insane cost of American medical care. Based on his article, 4 of the top 7 industry lobbyists in the United States come from healthcare.
(To read the rest of this article, please visit Forbes.)