Very good point - although you'd think it would be possible to have models and feedback for models that would scale.
I expect the "higher GDP" tells us a lot. I first discussed this with my Dad when we took one of us the the Emergency Room for stitches ( it just wasn't a summer as a kid without a bike wreck or something leading to stitches ) and I was shocked by the bill - in 1972.
I'd be pressed to find the reference, but people have shown that proportional percent of income ( in the aggregate, GDP ) spent on medical care has been consistent between countries.
I hold that employer-based health care has turned out more sour than it perhaps once was because employment has gotten weirder. That arguably was not true in, say 1950. But medicine was also smaller then.
> I'd be pressed to find the reference, but people have shown that proportional percent of income ( in the aggregate, GDP ) spent on medical care has been consistent between countries.
There's a couple of tables related to that at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_heal... . US is an outlier, with a total health expenditure of 17.7% of GDP. Otherwise, yes, most similar countries (Germany, France, etc.) spend between about 8 and 11% of GDP.
