imed the lives of the rich as well as the poor, we would look at health care differently. But we traditionally have distrusted government intervention. We've encouraged expensive medical innovations; we've tolerated high administrative costs and malpractice suits and we've allowed physicians to demand autonomy and dazzling salaries.
Economics, obviously, is the breaking-point factor in the American health care debate. Technologically, medicine in the United States is on a par with - or superior to - the rest of the industrialized world. That technological superiority has not been accompanied by cost-effective usage of the monies spent. While Americans stand at the top of the list in terms of spending on health care, we rank considerably below the frontrunners in terms of dollars-per-patient return on that expenditure. It is estimated that more than 25% of medical expenses go to bureaucratic costs alone. With most medical services doled out on a fee-per-service basis and malpractice litigation at an all-time high, the profit incentive and "protect
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