That Shocking Age and Health Care Spending Chart is Wrong

There’s a phrase in the business “too good to check” and that’s what happened to me this morning when I picked up a striking chart on age and health care spending in international context from Austin Frakt. The chart is based on an old Laurence Kotlikoff article about government spending that’s really just making the banal point that the federal government doesn’t spend much on health care for the non-elderly (because if Medicare) and I think there may be other problems with the data as well.