The Specter of Financial Armageddon — Health Care and Federal Debt in the United States

The most important force shaping the U. S. health care system over the coming decades may well be the federal debt. The government now pays for approximately half of all health care costs in the United States, and projections of growing federal debt largely reflect anticipated increases in health care spending. Because federal debt and health care policy in the United States are so deeply entwined, it is important to understand the basics of deficits and debt and their implications for health care reform. The deficit is the gap between expenditures and revenues in any given year (1. 4 trillion in the. . .