Ezra Klein has a chart up which he dubs “The most important graph in health-care policy.” It’s not. It’s worthless.

The chart is from the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) and it shows total health expenditures as a percentage of GDP by country. The key part of the graph is the split it shows between “public” and “private” health care spending. Ezra uses the chart to argue for more government control of the health care sector since the current system’s reliance on “private” spending has done nothing to control costs. He’s right about one thing: The U.S. health care system is terrible at controlling costs. But it has nothing to do with any phony distinction between “public” and “private” health care spending. It has everything to do with how U.S. government policy protects American health care consumers from out of pocket health care spending.