Governor Kulongoski has asked the state's Health Fund Board to come up with ideas for reducing the price of medical care. Good luck with that!

The governor's point, and it's an important one, is that reducing the price is essential if Oregon is going to expand the state Health Plan to cover more people, especially more children.

There may be ways to cut the cost, but only if we're willing to make some

changes.

Suppose you go see a doctor because something in your throat is bothering you a little. He checks and, with the help of an assistant, snips off a little growth he says is common and almost always benign. But he sends it to a lab anyway. Checking

that little bit of benign tissue turns out to cost $300. This is money down the drain. You may suspect that the test is done only to prevent future legal claims in the unlikely event that the tissue had been cancerous and had not been checked.

Protecting m

edical providers from liability in such cases would be one way to reduce costs. They should be able to say to a patient: "I've never seen one of these things that was bad, so do you want me to have it tested considering the cost? If not, sign here."

Anothe

r thing that might cut the costs of medicine overall: Telling people what something costs before they ask or agree to have it done.

It comes as a shock to check the hospitals' "Oregon PricePoint System" online and find that treating someone with chest pain

s for a day and a half in the hospital costs around $10,000. Chest pains are nothing to fool around with and there's no choice but to do something if you have them. But the price is representative - that is, much higher than you think - of medical prices g

enerally, even of procedures that are optional and voluntary. And even if insurance picks up much of the tab, people might be less inclined to undergo elective procedures including certain tests if their price was spelled out ahead of time.

If paying atten

tion to the price in money cuts down on medical usage generally, the price we pay likely would be more illness and earlier deaths, at least to some degree. And there's no point in talking about reducing prices in the way suggested here as long as we're not

prepared to accept that. (hh)