This is a Must Read article by Atul Gawande at the New Yorker is worth spending some time with today. It is really difficult to excerpt anything here, but it is just that good. He gets at many of the real policy and practice questions that need to be thought about as we talk about implementing universal health care. And this is nicely done — comparing the average Medicare costs of two Texas cities, including one that is surprisingly included as one of the highest cost Medicare expenditures per capita.
This article is an excellent starting point for thinking about how to contain health care costs, while boosting health outcomes. What Congress is currently working on is getting more people covered, and cleaning up some of the insurance mess — but the business of cost containment is going to be a longer term and probably much tougher project.
Really, just read the whole thing.