ECONOMICS OF HEALTHCARE

Healthcare Costs
Growth in national health spending closely tracked growth in nominal gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010 and 2011, and health spending as a share of GDP remained stable from 2009 through 2011, at 17.9 percent (Micah et al., 2011).
Based on the above information, answer the following questions:
• Define the economic principle of opportunity cost.
• Locate current GDP expenditures and express the percentages in a graph or a chart.
• Explain whether spending 17.9% of GDP is too much or too little to spend on healthcare.
• Defend your position using the concept of opportunity cost and highlight specific GDP expenditures that are impacted by healthcare expenditure (opportunity cost).

Reference:
Micah, H., Martin A. B., Benson, J., Catlin, A., & The National Health Expenditure
Accounts Team (2011). National Health Spending In 2011: Overall Growth
Remains Low, But Some Payers And Services Show Signs Of Acceleration.
Health Affairs. Retrieved from http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/32/
1/87.abstract