6-18-09

--The American College of Physicians attributes much of the high cost of the US health care system to its relative excess of well-paid specialists and lack of primary care doctors. ... Another very important but often overlooked reason for greater health expenditures in the US is that, more than in any other advanced country, large parts are owned by investors. As a result, the entire industry behaves like a profit driven industry ... Nearly a half-century ago, Kenneth Arrow, later a Nobel laureate, convincingly argued that medical care cannot conform to market laws because patients are not ordinary consumers and doctors are not ordinary vendors. –NYRB, 7-2-09 p. 38
--6-18-09—[Senator Gregg (R-NH)) said the Kennedy [health care draft] bill looked as if it had been written by Rube Goldberg, Karl Marx and Ira Magaziner. ... Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) fired back. “Our current system is a combination of Adam Smith, Darth Vader and the ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” she said. “So I like our plan better.”—NYT A19