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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AlterEgo99" data-source="post: 6236660" data-attributes="member: 610253">The excessive costs of our current medical system can be classified into three major categories:• The first, and by far the largest excess cost, is due to the current overuse of medical resources by patients. Overuse is the rational response of consumers who do not have to pay the entire cost of the medical services they use.  The causes of those excess costs are Medicaid, Medicare, and tax laws that provide incentives for individuals to have their employers purchase their medical care in the form of private health insurance.• The second category of excess cost consists of administrative and paperwork costs that are unnecessary for the provision of health care, but that have come into existence because of the current patchwork of third-party payers and their attempts to control their increasing costs by closely monitoring the behavior of doctors and patients.  Even worse is the fact that those cost-containment activities do not seem to have contained costs very well.• The third excess cost is associated with the fear of malpractice suits.  Administering medically unnecessary tests and procedures helps to insulate doctors and hospitals from the potential wrath of patients or their families when inevitable accidents occur in medical treatment or when treatments just do not work.In some sense each of those costs has been brought about by the retreat from a market-based system of medical delivery.  The first two of them could have been avoided if patients had been given incentives to make their own choices about medical care.  The third cost could have been controlled if the courts had allowed patients and medical providers to use market contracts to detail liability in case of unforeseen accidents.</blockquote>

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