You have to balance the potential benefit for say 1% of the population with the incremental costs. You're not going to pursue something just on the basis of whether it improves things. So to say, a 1% improvement in the quality of imaging that doubles the cost of imaging is a bad investment.
Steven Lipstein, President and CEO of BJC HealthCare--a $3 billion hospital system in St. Louis, Missouri--talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the economics of hospitals. They discuss pricing, the advantages and disadvantages of specialization in modern medical care, and culture and governance of non-profit hospitals vs. for-profit hospitals. At the end they talk about the positives and negatives of a national health board patterned after the Federal Reserve.