about healthcare costs not being affected by legal activity.

Lets review. First, we can all agree that liability insurance is a major line item for doctor's & hospitals. In some areas of specialization, it is so bad that it drives people out of the field. Second, I hope we can agree that liability insurance is primarily driven by the number of lawsuits and the average size of awards. Most insurance pricing is based on hard statistical data regarding occurance and severity. A common term for this sort of thing is "Risk Based Pricing". So, if we can accept that predatory lawyers and frivolous claims driven by plaintiffs who look at the legal system as a form of lottery are part of the problem, then we can acknowldge they are partially responsible for the higher liability insurance premiums. Since these premiums are an expense that is ulimately passed on to the consumer, then its fair to say the overly litigous system we have today does cause consumers to pay more for healthcare.

Please explain your comments about how higher healthcare costs are a result of higher productivity within the manufacturing sector. It seems to me like you tried to take a pat answer for inflation and apply it to rising healthcare costs without looking at the upward trends in specific line items of the income statement of a hospital or doctor's office. If I am mistaken, then please help me better understand your position.

Also, regarding your comments about inflation being a good thing I have to disagree again. Lets take our topic of healthcare. When healthcare costs go up then hard-working families have less to spend on everything else and seniors have to dig deeper into their retirment to stay healthy. How can these things possibly be good? I do not mean any disrespect, but you need to get out of the theoretical world and move into the practical world instead.