Discounted medicine

I don't think you can put a price on health...whatever it takes to stay alive, you know? But $2.2 trillion is excessive to the point that it's ridiculous. I am not against spending as much as possible to keep a human being healthy, but I do believe that there is a way to attain health efficiently and in a way that is financially responsible. We have a lot of other issues in this country besides healthcare...not enough teachers in schools, for example, which could really use a monetary boost. Pouring more into healthcare only means that we are taking money away from other arenas.

I always thought it was amazing just how many acquired illness are from hospital infections. Dr. Atul Gawande has an entire section in his book "Better" about washing hands. Doctors and nurses only wash their hands one-third to one-half as often as they're actually supposed do. And this accounts for something like 2 million cases of acquired hospital infections...of which some 90,000 die. There's an entire procedure for how to properly wash your hands. I don't think any doctor or nurse completely adheres to it--not because they don't care, but when you see patient after patient after patient day in and day out, it's easy to forget or slip up.

It seems logical to not over-spend on anything, but when it comes to healthcare, there's almost this mentality like "how can you put a discount on health?" But just because the price of something is low, doesn't mean that it's of poor quality.