"dpb" wrote:


(and Lew, before you start, I've never disagreed that costs need
some sort of containment, only that I don't see how anything so far
proposed is going to help in that regard other than transfer one
form of cost for another disguised one).

As I see it the only way to get a handle on cost containment is to
change the focus of how medicine is practiced.

We need to focus on the lower cost preventative medicine rather than
the higher cost therapies required after someone gets ill.

To do this requires early like preventative care(prenatal, pediatric,
etc) of all the population.

Producing a healthier young population that requires fewer high cost
procedures later in life is the easiest way to reduce what are now a
totally runaway costs to a more manageable level while at the same
time improving over all health of the nation.

Lew