ABSTRACT
One of the paradoxes of the healthcare financing debates of the last 40 years is our failure to grasp what health actually means; we keep trying to figure out how to pay for health and healthcare, but we show little sign of acting to achieve what health or healthcare truly is. This chapter drills down on medical services spending, using that spending as a window on what the United States thinks or acts as if health is. What are we spending our "health" dollars on? Hospital care, physician services, prescription drugs, and nursing home care. Hospital care, physician services, and to some extent, prescription drugs do three things: they delay death, they treat pain or discomfort, and they facilitate the return to function or correct disability, which also permits return to function.
