Health Care Systems in Japan and the United States

The health-care sector has become a major component of the contemporary economies of Japan and the United States. It absorbs significant portions of the GDP in both countries, and places increasing stress on private, government, and corporate budgets. With so much at stake, arrangements for planning, financing, and operating health-care service systems have become increasingly important economic and political issues. This study takes a macroeconomic policy approach to analyzing a fundamental question of the health care debate: can the anticipated increasing rate of growth in future health care expenditures be financially absorbed by the society's increasing income and output? This monograph addresses not only if, but also how, health care financing could in the future be ethically, safely, and economically accomplished. It identifies the right questions which must be answered and the balance that must be sought among the dilemmas and paradoxes raised by the realities of financing health care services in the future.