This is not just because of the time and financial squeezes imposed on every visit by health insurance companies but also because new therapies and sensitive scans and tests are permitting diagnosis and treatment for many diseases much earlier than ever before.
Discretionary programs, already squeezed by caps imposed in 2011 and automatic across-the-board cuts that went into force this month, would be cut by an additional $249 billion.
American manufacturers, including Apple, have begun to feel the squeeze from U.S. tariffs imposed by China.
While delaying pension contributions would ease that cash squeeze, it would impose more risks on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the government body that pays retirees' benefits when a company's pension plan fails.
Something like that happened in the mid-1990s, when John Major imposed a fiscal squeeze after a recession.
"Workers in the public sector are now bearing the brunt of the real pay squeeze, adding to the pain imposed by job cuts in the order of 10,000 per month," said John Philpott, of consultancy the Jobs Economist.
Since the soldier's capture, Israeli forces have imposed a slow squeeze on Gaza to try to secure the soldier's release, crossing the borders in the north and the south, firing some 1,500 artillery rounds from land and sea, and carrying out nightly air raids.
Operators have become less enamoured of the rail sector, with profits squeezed and tougher franchise terms imposed.
Higher taxes imposed later further squeezed the region's export income, and the Jesuit missions continued to be a hated competitor driving down prices of the Paraguayan's cash crop.
