No Essay
...rel, echoing the findings of a new survey of U.S. corporate leaders, agreed that the soaring cost of health care is the biggest single U.S. policy concern for the coming year and threatens the optimistic mood of American chief executives. "It's a real serious concern," Taurel said. "The health care system in the U.S. suffers from problems of cost, of quality and of access." The survey of 82 chief executives by the Business Council and The Conference Board, released earlier on Thursday, said that overall they were quite optimistic about the U.S. and global economies, but that health-care costs were a barrier to hiring and the top policy concern. "We have to move in the direction of creating better market conditions to improve quality and reduce costs," Taurel said, adding that the choice was between creating a single-payer system -- similar to that in Europe, Canada, or Japan -- or a system where patients take on more financial responsibility. "We need to make the patient a real consumer who can compare quality...