Guo: Absolutely. That's one point that I made a week ago when I wrote about this. It's not just a lot of these death rates are rising, but that a huge chasm has now opened up between us and Europe.
Deaton: The obvious difference is that the safety net is enormously more generous in Europe. And lot of people in their 50s who lose their jobs can go on retirement. You get a doctor's certificate and you get paid pretty much your salary until you die.
There's one other policy recommendation that I've been pushing. We're spending about three trillion dollars a year on health care. And our life expectancy is going down. Whereas all these other countries are spending way less, and their life expectancy is going up. For me the implication is if we implemented single payer, we'd get rid of a lot of these costs. Not without screaming and yelling, of course, and not without goring a lot of oxen.
But the crucial thing is recognizing the extent to which these rising health care costs are responsible, at least in part, for the stagnant wages for people without a college degrees. If they've got an employer and they've got health care, their wages are getting pushed down by the employer paying for that health care. People don't even realize this. They think it's for free.
I'm not a left-wing nut pushing for single-payer! It's not because I like socialized medicine. It's just because I think this is eating capitalism alive, and if we want a healthy capitalist society in America, we've got to get rid of this monster.
"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay"
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