Why we'll have to get serious about health-care costs in one graph

In Washington, some talk about the health-care problem as if it's simply a Medicare problem. That's not true. It's just that the CBO estimates Medicare's impact on the deficit, and so we get frequent reminders of the threat from Medicare. But imagine if we fix Medicare but don't get private spending under control. Here's what'll happen to our incomes:

Not good. And consider that the yellow line looks at a 2 percentage point difference in growth. In 2006, GDP per-capita growth was 1.6 percent. Health-care growth was 6.7 percent. So the current reality is much, much worse than even the grim scenario that the yellow line is looking at.

(Via Austin Frakt.)