David Cutler

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Dave Cutler (disambiguation).

David Matthew Cutler is Dean of the Social Sciences Professor of Economics at Harvard University. He served in the administration of Bill Clinton and was an advisor to the presidential campaign of John Kerry. He is currently an advisor to Barack Obama.^[1]

While his work on health economics covers a broad range of subtopics, he is particularly notable for his work on the value of the health care system as a whole. Much of his work argues that the United States has realized good "bang for its buck" by any reasonable measure of the value of a statistical year of life in good health. That is, while health care is extremely expensive, we also place a very high value on documentable health gains. He also argues that we could gain considerably more health for the dollar if reimbursement for care could be tied to the health value of the service instead of the intensity of the service. See his book Your Money or Your Life for a good introduction to David Cutler's views on the United States health care system.

Additionally, Cutler's 2003 "Why have Americans become more obese?" discusses rising obesity as an outcome of the revolution in mass food packaging. He includes vacuum packing, improved preservatives, deep freezing, and microwaves as culprits. Consumer prices on items like various frozen foods, soda, and potato chips are increasing at half the rate of fresh fruits and vegetables. This mass preparation makes for lower costs, and more food consumption. Meanwhile, calories expended haven't changed much. Accordingly, Cutler posits that the 20 minute average reduced time of food preparation has resulted in a calorie increase of 100 per day per individual, on average. These extra 100 calories can largely account for a 10-12 lb. weight gain in the American population over the past 20 years.