How Much Healthcare Can We Afford?

Technology Assessment Is the Key to Healthcare Reform
Daniel J Ullyot, MD

Do we have the political will to limit ourselves? Americans love technology, especially new medical technology. The cliché ‘America has the best healthcare in the world’ really means that American healthcare uses the most advanced technology. U.S.  supremacy in the development, dissemination, and clinical application of technology explains healthcare expenditures exceeding those of other ‘first-world’ countries by a factor of two or more. Everyone agrees that America must constrain healthcare costs. We have the technical expertise to create a national forum to evaluate new medical technologies competently and fairly. We simply cannot keep up our romance with technology, paying whatever providers and manufacturers demand for their services and products.  Read the whole article here.