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David Cutler on trimming U.S. healthcare costs | Harvard Magazine

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LONG BEFORE the presidential primaries, or a paralyzing pandemic, Harvard Magazine asked several faculty experts to write about issues that would be shaped by the national elections, that mattered to the future of the country—and that would probably be addressed inadequately during the extended campaign. One issue was the federal budget and its chronic, enormous deficits. When we approached Karen Dynan and Douglas Elmendorf to explain all that red ink (and what, if anything, to do about it), the state of play was an unlikely mix: a record U.S. economic expansion and very low unemployment, paradoxically accompanied by trillion-dollar annual deficits and historically low interest rates. Those figures now seem quaint. The coronavirus has caused a precipitous recession, or worse, and attempts to offset potentially cataclysmic job losses are yielding a multi-trillion-dollar budget gap that will need to be paid for some day; at the same time, government interest rates have fallen even furthe

Commentary | April 10, 2020 David Cutler on trimming U.S. healthcare costs Administrative costs, greed, overutilization—can these drivers of U.S. medical costs be curbed? by David Cutler From The May-June 2020 Issue Americans use a lot of technologically sophisticated, expensive medical services—slighting more effective, routine care. Photograph by Rui Vieira/PA Wire/AP Images L ONG BEFORE the presidential primaries, or a paralyzing pandemic, Harvard Magazine asked several faculty experts to write about issues that would be shaped by the national elections, that mattered to the future of the c

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