Ezekiel Emanuel reminded New York Times readers last week of something health economists have known for eight decades. Health expenditures are highly concentrated, with just 10 percent of the population accounting for nearly two-thirds of annual health spending.

To better understand the determinants of health spending, it is important to distinguish spending on chronic health conditions from spending on patients with chronic health conditions.

America spends more than any other developed nation on health care--$2.1 trillion in 2007 alone--yet 46 million Americans are still uninsured, and those who are insured often receive costly but inappropriate care. While there is little doubt that the health system needs reform, there is substantial disagreement about the role...

In his plan to save America from its health care crisis, Ezekiel Emanuel provides a number of nuanced findings and provocative thoughts, but the wholeis less than the sum of its parts.

Concerns about government bureaucracies gaining oversight of your treatment are not misplaced. We need reforms, but the answer is not central planning.

The Obama administration envisions accountable care organizations (ACOs) as the drivers of health care innovation, but such innovation has historically come from entrepreneurs in the private sector.

The controversy over aspects of the House health care legislation that have been inappropriately equated with "death panels" has obscured the real problems with these provisions.