BMJ  2008;336:349 (16 February), doi:10.1136/bmj.39486.688356.DB

News

Commercialisation of health care in US distorts resource allocation, expert says

¹ Quebec

The failure of the United States to contain medical costs, which now exceed $2.1 trillion (£1.1 trillion; 1.4 trillion) a year or more than $7000 for every man, woman, and child in the country, results primarily from the unique and pervasive commercialisation of the sector, an article in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine says (2008;358:549-51).

Inthe perspective article Robert Kuttner, coeditor of the magazine The American Prospect and a senior fellow at Demos, a public policy research and advocacy organisation based in New York, contends that what raises costs and distorts resource allocation are "the dominance of for-profit insurance and pharmaceutical companies, a new wave of investor-owned specialty hospitals, and profit-maximising behaviour even by nonprofit players."

He continues: "Profits, billing, marketing, and the gratuitous costs of private bureaucracies siphon off $400 billion to $500 billion of the $2.1 trillion spent, but the more serious and less appreciated syndrome . . . [Full text of this article]

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

are you listening gordon?

Bob Bury
bmj.com, 15 Feb 2008 [Full text]

Patients will never be "customers"

Stefan Diez
bmj.com, 18 Feb 2008 [Full text]

Are markets evil?

stephen black
bmj.com, 22 Feb 2008 [Full text]