The Chair of the National Governor’s Association, Utah’s Gary Herbert, joined governors from throughout the country Monday, for a question and answer session with President Barack Obama.
President Obama listened to questions from governors who asked him about public health, the increased use and abuse of opiate drugs, Medicaid expansion and the national debt.
“The real problem that we have, when it comes to debt, is very simple. It’s that our population is getting older and we use a lot of healthcare. We spend more for less, frankly, then most other advance nations. Partially because we do a lot of emergency room care, some of it is because we over-prescribe. We over test. Some of it is we drive innovation and technology and people always want the best stuff, but that costs money.”
In what was his final question and answer session with the nation’s governors as president, Obama told them that the U.S. spends about 6-8% more than our wealthy nation counterparts per capita on healthcare.
Full NGA Conference here:
