The New Yorker health care article everyone’s talking about

By Jenn Jue, Washington AIDS Partnership

At Brookings’ health care quality meeting on Tuesday, everyone–including Senator Baucus–was talking about “The Cost Conundrum,” Atul Gawande’s June 1st, 2009 article in The New Yorker.  It’s created a lot of buzz among policymakers and those interested in reforming the U.S. health care system. (President Obama has been passing it around.) The article focuses on a small town in Texas, and what its unbelievably high health care costs mean for health care reform in the U.S. Bottom line: High levels of health care spending does not mean better, higher quality care. It’s often a sign of unneeded overutilization of health care services that can lead to poor health outcomes.