55 students and faculty members joined the Benjamin Rush Society and the Colorado Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) for the first of their monthly speaker series, featuring Dr. Mike Fallon and Dr. Linda Gorman, on January 10, 2012, at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.  The title of the presentation was:

Spats, Stats, & The Rising Cost of Health Care

Dr. Fallon, a former Congressional candidate, addressed the following:

• Why is health care so expensive?
• What is the role of Medicare and Medicaid liabilities in the national debt?
• How have technological advances and the federal regulator climate contributed to rising costs?

Dr. Gorman, Senior Fellow and Director of the Health Care Policy Institute at the Independence Institute, discussed issues will international comparisons of health-systems performance using sources such as

• The World Health Organization (WHO) surveys
• Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reports
• The European Union (EU) health-basket results.

Photos of the event are posted at the Society's Facebook page.