IMPROVING HEALTH CARE

I know that Hannity and Limbaugh are stridently opposed to heakth care reform but what about their listeners? There is so much public evidence that our system needs an overhaul that I can't see that these two gasbags and their imitators will have much influence in the coming debate.

U.S. 'Not Getting What We Pay For'
Many Experts Say Health-Care System Inefficient, Wasteful
By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 30, 2008; Page A01

Talk to the chief executives of America's preeminent health-care institutions, and you might be surprised by what you hear: When it comes to medical care, the United States isn't getting its money's worth. Not even close.

"We're not getting what we pay for," says Denis Cortese, president and chief executive of the Mayo Clinic. "It's just that simple."

"Our health-care system is fraught with waste," says Gary Kaplan, chairman of Seattle's cutting-edge Virginia Mason Medical Center. As much as half of the $2.3 trillion spent today does nothing to improve health, he says.

Not only is American health care inefficient and wasteful, says Kaiser Permanente chief executive George Halvorson, much of it is dangerous.


The United States today devotes 16 percent of its gross domestic product to medical care, more per capita than any other nation in the world. Yet numerous measures indicate the country lags in overall health: It ranks 29th in infant mortality, 48th in life expectancy and 19th out of 19 industrialized nations in preventable deaths.

Better data may also address what Dartmouth College researchers describe as large, "unwarranted" variations in medical spending. Analyzing Medicare payments for patients in the final two years of life, the school's Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice found that similar care -- when adjusted for differences in age, race and diagnoses -- cost as much as $93,000 at the UCLA Medical Center and as little as $55,000 at the Mayo and Cleveland clinics. The national average was nearly $53,000.

With those sorts of variations, the Dartmouth team concluded that as much as 30 percent of medical spending -- or $700 billion -- does nothing to improve care.