Actually no, Hoss Hoss. I have a graph in the book which plots exactly when the trend in U.S. healthcare costs breaks off from the trend in other countries. It was not when Medicare and Medicaid were introduced in 1964. That is a barely noticeable blip. It happened (and quite sharply, it’s really obvious on the graph) 20 years later, with the introduction of coding: Matching every action in healthcare to a code on the fee-for-service list in order to charge for it.

The real price and overall cost inflation began right then. And the private part of it has always been steeper. There is no evidence for the idea that it’s all about a big government “cash cow.” The industry looks on Medicare and Medicaid as things they have to and on’t get paid enough for. They look on private insurance as their big source of income through “cost shifting,” piling more of the cost on private payers.