Health Care Spending

First and foremost, health care spending in the US is unsustainable. Changing how we do business and bending the cost curve are essential in solving this problem.  But, we need to stop comparing the US and what we spend on health care to other nations.  It is not a fair comparison.  Other nations do not have comparable regulatory oversight that we have in the US nor do they practice defensive medicine like physicians feel that they have to do in the US because of an ongoing feeding frenzy by personal injury attorneys.  Most other countries protect their physicians from frivolous lawsuits, but not the US.  Take Maryland, we have  personal injury attorneys who serve as President of the Senate and Chair of the State Senate's Judiciary Committee; tort reform doesn't have a fighting chance in Maryland.  Clearly, this is an argument for the Op Ed page and not the hospital boardroom, but let's compare apples to apples going forward.