The relevant factor in terms of growth percentage is not the total between the two lines, or even the total that we could reduce them, but the total increase we could forgo each year.
If the total is $300bil, and if we do nothing next year it will be $320bil, but if we do something smart about it stays at $300bil, than we've saved $20bil. That's a lot of money, but much less than total health care costs are likely to increase per year.
OTOH while it may not be a huge part of the annual increase, it may be a large part of the fraction of the annual increase that we could stop without significantly hurting care, so arguably it should be something we focus on. Its not like we are going to change factors like demographic changes, and while we can reduce expensive medical innovation doing so is a net loss not a gain, even if it reduces health care expenditures. But reducing fraud and defensive medicine would be a net gain.
But then we've heard a lot about reducing waste and fraud as a way to save money before, usually with little result. And I don't think greatly reducing defensive medicine will be easy either (more tort reform will help, but even with it there will still be lawsuits, and also a medical culture that encourages defensive medicine, torts aren't the only thing that drives defensive medicine, and no, or too high of limits for damages aren't the only thing driving the litigiousness in our society) |
