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Interviewer: Today I'm
interviewing Professor David Cutler
about health care in
the United States.
Professor Cutler
is Otto Eckstein
Professor of Applied Economics
at Harvard University.
He also holds appointments in
the Kennedy School of Government
and the School of Public Health.
There is a presumption that
listeners will have read
Professor Cutler's article
"The World's Costliest
Health Care,
and what America
might do about it"
in Harvard Magazine,
May-June 2020
before listening
to this interview.
Professor Cutler,
what's the problem,
and is there a cure or at
least treatment that will
improve the current condition?
Prof. Cutler: Well,
thank you for having me.
The US has a number of
problems in health care.
I would list them in a
few different categories.
The first one is
that we do not have
a universal insurance
coverage system.
Unlike most other wealthy
countries around the globe,
really all other
wealthy countries,
and some middle-income
countries.
The US has never
been able to do that
and that's a problem because
people can bankrupt themselves
in the medical care system.
The second problem is
that the cost and quality
of medical care is substandard.
The US spends more
than it ought to and
it gets less than it should
given what it spends.
That's a big problem
because the US is
wasting a lot of money at a time
