New perspectives on our national health care dilemma

Continued debate over who should pay for the increasingly unaffordable U.S. health care system has failed to yield a consensus solution. Shifting attention to how to reduce health care costs may be more productive. Strategies for achieving this goal include drastically reducing costly quality deficiencies, eliminating higher cost care options that add no demonstrated value, recognizing that responsibility for clinical and cost consequences cannot be divided, and acknowledging that rationing available resources is superior to other allocation alternatives.