By Jason Kane, PBS Newshour, October 22, 2012

Editor's note: All week on the NewsHour's health page, we'll continue to explore why the U.S. health care system is so expensive and what can be done to fix it

This first piece is very good start, in my opinion; beginning excerpt:

How much is good health care worth to you? $8,233 per year? That's how much the U.S. spends per person.

Worth it?

That figure is more than two-and-a-half times more than most developed nations in the world, including relatively rich European countries like France, Sweden and the United Kingdom. On a more global scale, it means U.S. health care costs now eat up 17.6 percent of GDP.

A sizable slice of Americans -- including some top-ranking politicians -- say the cost may be unfortunate but the U.S. has "the best health care in the world."

But let's consider what 17 cents of every U.S. dollar is purchasing [....]