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hospital visits, surgery, end-of-life care, nursing-home care, and chronic conditions with expensive medication Any list of major costs in the medical system t
by crusso 14y ago
hospital visits, surgery, end-of-life care, nursing-home care, and chronic conditions with expensive medication
Any list of major costs in the medical system that doesn't include legal expenses is highly suspect.
- mjn 14y agoDepending on which estimate you believe, legal expenses (including direct and indirect) account for about 1-3% of overall US healthcare costs. Not nothing, but not in the range of what we're spending on, say, end-of-life hospital care (10-20%).
- crusso 14y agoOkay, fair enough. I remember reading about substantially higher percentages in the past, but googling just now turned up a best guess of 2.4%. I couldn't find any details on how they calculated the indirect nature of defensive medicine, but what they did have didn't seem to be very comprehensive.