Health care policies should protect those gains in coverage that have been achieved since the financial crisis (particularly for those at the lower end of the income distribution). Doing so will have positive implications for well-being, productivity, and labor force participation. This, in turn, will strengthen growth and job creation, reduce economic insecurity associated with the lack of health coverage, and have positive effects for the medium-term fiscal position.
On one of the top priorities of the current U.S. administration, deregulation:
In international comparisons, the U.S. already scores favorably on regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship, trade, and investment. In addition, U.S.-specific research on the evidence of negative economic implications of regulations is scant. Nonetheless, a simplification and streamlining of federal regulations as well as an effort to harmonize rules across states would likely boost efficiency and could stimulate job creation, productivity, and growth.
To sum up:
Reforms should include building a more efficient tax system; establishing a more effective regulatory system; raising infrastructure spending; improving education and developing skills; strengthening healthcare coverage while containing costs; offering family-friendly benefits; maintaining a free, fair, and mutually beneficial trade and investment regime; and reforming the immigration and welfare systems.
OK, right. We'll take care of all that next week.
What's interesting to me, though, is that most of these suggestions seem to come with the subtext that other affluent countries have devised approaches in these areas that the U.S. would do well to emulate. I got into economic journalism in the mid-to-late 1990s, when the U.S. was outperforming most other rich economies and policy makers in France, Germany, Japan and elsewhere were looking to New York, Washington and Silicon Valley for ideas on how to spur growth and dynamism.
The U.S. still seems to hold a big advantage over the rest of the world (although China has made some inroads) in birthing and nurturing the global corporate titans of the digital age, which has to be worth something. It also, by the IMF's reckoning, has a relatively healthy financial system. But on all sorts of other matters -- taxation, labor markets, health care, education -- the U.S. has become more a cautionary tale than a shining example.
One major difference between the U.S. and most of the rest of the developed world is ideological: People and politicians in the U.S. are much more ambivalent about the modern welfare state than their peers in other wealthy nations and have been less willing to raise taxes to finance it. A report from the IMF or an opinion column by the likes of me isn't going to change a lot of minds on that. Perhaps in part because otherwise their economies would have collapsed under the weight of all that welfare-state generosity, though, other wealthy countries also seem to have figured out better, more cost-effective ways of raising revenue, providing education, helping the jobless, fighting poverty, and keeping citizens healthy than the U.S. has. This country has some catching up to do.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.