But some also point to CyberKnife as emblematic of the inconsistent way that the federal Medicare budget — expected to be $477 billion in the current fiscal year — is spent, region to region.
Safety was also a bigger problem in higher spending regions: mortality rates were 2percentto5percentcent higher in regions that spent more.
And this was not because of differences in the underlying health of the populations in different regions: in every analysis, mortality was no better or worse in the higher spending regions.
The additional services provided in higher spending regions are largely discretionary, like more frequent visits to specialists, longer hospital stays and more frequent use of diagnostic tests and minor procedures.
Dr. Elliott S. Fisher, one of the Dartmouth researchers, diagnosed the problem this way: "Medicare beneficiaries in higher spending regions are hospitalized more frequently, are referred to specialists more often and have a much smaller proportion of their visits to primary care physicians".
But voter education is weak in most places, says David Carroll of the Carter Centre in Atlanta, which monitors elections worldwide.Thomas Fujiwara of Princeton University used the phased introduction of voting machines in Brazil to study their effects on health-care spending: regions where they were being used spent more than those yet to make the switch.
However, there is considerable variation in spending between regions and countries.
Its research suggests the north east is the most generous region, spending an average £683, while Cornwall spends the least at £527.
An extrapolation of our data suggest that our institution is spending in the region of £970 296 per year on our solid tumour and lymphoma MDMs.
But is curing British philistinism a job for Brussels?Eurocrats talk of the efficiency of spending money through regions.
Errors in "cohesion" spending for struggling regions totalled 6.8%.
