Source: Uwe Reinhardt, N.Y.Times ( Free Registration )

Traditionally, the theory driving discussions on the high cost of health care in the United States has been that there is enormous waste in the system, taking the form of excess utilization of care. From that theory it follows that methods of controlling the growth of health spending should focus on ways to reduce the use of unnecessary or only marginally beneficial health care.

Largely overlooked in these discussions has been the elephant in the room: the extraordinarily high prices Americans pay for health care. In most other countries, prices for health care goods and services are not negotiated between individual health insurers and individual physicians, hospitals or drug companies, as they are in the private insurance sector in United States.

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