Recent analysis of the OECD data on 24 industrialized countries (mostly in Europe but including Japan and the U.S.), points out that ???if the 2.2 percent annual increase in health expenditures resulting from excess health care inflation [in the U.S.] had not occurred, nominal spending during the period 1975-1987 would have increased by 9.3 percent per year instead of 11.7 percent, resulting in 19