The fact is that it is already happening and going to happen in the future. The main question is who is going to be in charge of doing it. I see something similar to this as the only "acceptable" solution.
And it is true that there is substantial evidence that one of the biggest drivers of cost in medicine in America is people seeking treatment and medicine that they don't actually need. People tend to think that if it is more expensive that they probably need it (which is pretty common in American culture). This is from the CBO. You can click the link to see a guy critique what they have said.
U.S. spends $700 billion on unnecessary medical tests
http://healthcare-economist.com/2008/11/07/us-spends-700-billion-on-unnecessary-medical-tests/
November 7, 2008 in Health Insurance, Public Policy
“Peter Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office, estimates that 5 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product-—$700 billion per year –goes to tests and procedures that do not actually improve health outcomes…The unreasonably high cost of health care in the United States is a deeply entrenched problem that must be attacked at its root.”
This quotation comes from a Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) report. There is little doubt that much of health care is unnecessary or at least is not worthwhile in the cost-benefit sense. However, how do we fix this problem? PPI has some suggestions which the Healthcare Economist will scrutinize.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
