Costs are very high, but are they too high?

Two Bad Reasons

GNP has to be spent on something--why not health care?

not hurting productivity--just reducing quality of living (i.e., wages) for workers

Three Good Reasons

Defensive medicine--done just to prevent malpractice

unnecessary care--care that does more harm than good

"low yield" care--not much return for the investment

don’t want to miss anythign so they order more tests

wastes in marketing and administration and billing and excess equipment, facilities, and personnel

spread out of technology rather than centralization

excess incomes to drug companies and physicians

Why Pain is Inevitable

Three ways to cut costs: reduce services, produce he services with fewerr resources, or cut the prices paid to the resources

physicians and patients will object to reduced services--not as straight forward as buisness decisions

ellimination of profits and income to drug companies and physicians are painful and "requier no elaboration."