Cost-Effectvess of US Health Care

The nay-sayers are girding up for battle with misinformation about the need to change the US Health Care System. The first two sentances of an editorial in this week's Lancet shoud be buirned into all our memories and the full ediorial read. "The USA has the highest health care expenditure of any industrialized nation (currently US$2•5 trillion or roughly 20% of GDP), yet it ranks 29th in infant mortality and 45th in life expectancy; a third of every health-care dollar is spent on bureaucracy. 46 million US citizens do not have health insurance (costing $123 billion annually in acute emergency care). For those who are insured, health resources are controlled by third parties (employers and insurance companies). Most personal bankruptcies are caused by health-care debts."