Compared to Canada, the United States spends almost twice as much on health care services, even though the overall situation is similar to other developed nation's health outcomes, Johnson said.
The root of the American health care problem lies in the widespread desire among consumers for the newest, most advanced health care without wanting to pay for it.
"[Insurance companies] are caught between a rock and a hard place," Johnson said, describing the balance they must strike between the demands of providers and doctors who want to be paid more and consumers who want to pay less for health care.
Johnson compared the health care industry to the airline industry, citing the heavy involvement of the federal government within the airline industry as the reason for the relative safety of American airlines. He said he believes that the health care industry would benefit from a similar level of federal involvement in lieu of the system currently in place, which allows state government to establish their own health care legislation.
"Because we don't have that kind of regulation in the health care business, the Institute of Medicine estimates that about 100,000 people die of medical errors every year in this country," Johnson said. "These deaths happen one by one, behind closed doors and pulled curtains, and it's because we leave it up to every state."
Although the health care system needs major reforms, Johnson is not confident in the government's ability to solve the problem, he said.
"If we are going to have a heath care reform, we are going to have to take it out of the hands of the politicians," he said. "They are never going to be able to deal with health care unless they cede decision-making power to a national board of experts and patients."
While a universal health care system would cut jobs in the short term, it is necessary for the system's reform, he said. Individuals currently working in health care could be retrained to fill other positions, and effectively recognizing ways to alter spending practices would minimize negative effects for patients and employees, he said.
"If a third of what we spend is unnecessary, and we can figure out how to identify that and not pay for it and only pay for things that are truly beneficial, we probably wouldn't have to make that many hard choices," he said.
As it stands, the future of health care will likely be characterized by increasing medical costs that will eventually create a financial crisis, Johnson said.
"The medical-industrial complex is so embedded in our culture that the costs are going to keep going up, no matter what we do, and we will reach a crisis point a financial crisis when the country faces bankruptcy when it can't sell its bonds on an international market," he said.
Many faculty members and members of the medical community attended Johnson's lecture, which was the annual John P. McGovern Lecture series sponsored by the C. Everett Koop Institute at the Geisel School of Medicine. The lecture series aims to draw doctors from various backgrounds to discuss their work and its social context.
"We've tried to branch out as much as possible," Jennifer Liu '12, an administrative intern and one of the main organizers of the lecture, said.
Joseph O'Donnell, a senior scholar at the Koop Institute and a professor at the Geisel School, said he has been working to capitalize on former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop's connections to prominent medical experts to inspire dialogue on campus.
"Within Dr. Koop's circle of friends are all these great people," he said. "The thing I've been trying to do is to have them come up here and visit with him and give a lecture."
While several students in attendance said they enjoyed the lecture, others said the content was unexpected.
"I thought he was going to dive more into the issues specifically, but it turned out to be more topics based on his book," John Hong '14 said. "I feel like I have to read his book now to fully know what he was talking about."
