Abstract
So let me explore with you why my judgment on this score proved inaccurate. In the proverbial nutshell, whatever happens in Washington in the weeks and months ahead, the United States is fated for the indefinite future to conduct a prolonged and difficult national debate on health care.
The reason for this protracted and arduous argument can be summarized in a single word: cost. Yet, paradoxically, the rhetoric of unspecified cost reduction is used to avoid the painful choices needed to prune health care outlays, choices that inevitably involve agonizing denials of medical services in a world of finite resources. Medical costs cannot be controlled without denying something to somebody. Yet, paradoxically, the term “cost” is used in contemporary political discourse to avoid the difficult choices involved in such denials. It is easier to favor unspecified cost reductions, than to identify particular service denials that would actually reduce medical care expenditures. Elected officials are reluctant to deny medical services to cut costs, but health care costs cannot be meaningfully controlled without such service denials.
Comments
Simon Review Paper #16
This paper was published in Volume 31, Number 2 (April-June 2010) of the Journal of Legal Medicine, the official scholarly journal of the American College of Legal Medicine.