Health cost crisis called 'close to cliff'

In most years, the country gets a little bit richer. In the last decade, nearly all of the gains - more than 90% of economic growth - went toward offsetting the growth in health care spending. The estimate, based on research by Michael Chernew, a health economist at Harvard University, is for 2000 through 2009, a period marked by sluggish growth overall. But it illustrates the growing burden that health care costs place on households as they struggle to get ahead. "At some point, you get close to the cliff," said Dean Gruner, a physician and chief executive of ThedaCare in the Fox Valley. "And to me, we are pretty darn close." (JOURNAL SENTINEL, 7/25)