Greg Mankiw asks a great question about how America's "high" health care costs are labeled.
On the issue of doctor training: Suppose that in country A physicians get free training through a taxpayer-financed educational system, while in country B physicians finance their own education and then, once trained, are paid higher fees. If country A classifies these training expenses as education rather than healthcare spending, which country would report higher healthcare costs? Is that difference in healthcare costs real or an artifact of labeling? In which country would doctors, once trained, have more incentive to work long hours? In which country would there be more doctors? Which country's system, in your judgment, is more efficient and equitable?
America is country B, and most other countries are A. Maybe this kind of labeling phenomenon affects not just our perceived too-high costs of health care, but also our perceived too-low education spending.
