Why are medical costs too high? Steven Brill has the answers

I would like to draw your attention to an article by Steven Brill published in Time on February 20 (http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/bitter-pill-why-medical-bills-are-killing-us/print/) which explains a great deal of what is wrong with medical costs in the USA today.  This is a long article, based on several example bills that struck real patients recently.  I encourage you to peruse its contents and ponder if there is any possible solution to the problems it presents.

There is a serious impediment to changes in our medical cost system, naturally.  This stumbling block is the way our government is organized, specifically the system of lobbying.  The medical establishment spends more than any other on lobbying–more even than the military industrial complex.  With lobbying to retain their comfortable, legally mandated position of privilege, it is unlikely that the medical system will change.  The only thing that could force change now is the collapse of one of the institutions that keeps the status quo.