> costs rise faster than warranted by the growth of elderly
> persons.
Is that really the metric in use? Why don't other kinds of spending have to survive that kind of test?
> Prices here are much higher than other countries. We're
> spending more than we need to.
And Doug says:
> Countries that spend far less have better health indicators.
Isn't this really because the US spends "too much" on things that don't lead to "better health indicators" ...? "Health indicators" are based on average health of the population; most of US spending is on a small number of people (instead of the entire population: 5% accounts for more than half of the spending); and end-of-life care. It's (mis)allocation of resources, per usual. Health indicators in the US could skyrocket if access to basic care was a priority ... and it wouldn't even cost very much.
/jordan