The debate over health care reform in the United States centers on questions about whether there is a fundamental right to health care, on who should have access to health care and under what circumstances, on the quality achieved for the high sums spent, and on the sustainability of expenditures that have been rising faster than the level of general inflation and the growth in the economy. The leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States is Medical debt[1][2] which is almost unknown in other countries in the developed world. [3] The United States health care system, which has a higher level of for-profit providers and for-profit insurers than most similar industrialized countries, is also the most expensive in the world, with health care costing substantially more per person than in any other nation on Earth.[4] A greater portion of total yearly income in the nation is spent on health care in the U.S. than in any United Nations member state except for Tuvalu,[5] although the actual use of health care services in the U.S., by most measures of health services use, is below the median among the world's developed countries.[6]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_reform_in_the_United_States#
Health economics is a branch of economics concerned with issues related to scarcity in the allocation of health and health care. For example, it is now clear that medical debt is the principle cause of bankruptcy in the United States.[1] In broad terms, health economists study the functioning of the health care system and the private and social causes of health-affecting behaviors such as smoking.
