Given the relentless advances in medical technology and health-care inflation, I find it hard to believe that the independent commission will come up with enough savings to rein in spending.

Whether Kaiser can stand up to health-care inflation is another question.

Yet even the most draconian measures would still have little effect on health-care inflation - because drugs account for just 7 per cent of all spending on patients.

For current retirees, the companies bear the entire burden of health-care inflation.

One basic problem is that health-care inflation runs at 8.1% a year; the maximum inflation protection you can usually get in a long-term-care insurance policy is 5% that's the best you can do.

While that 5% rate will not keep up entirely with health-care inflation, it will give you a better chance of being able to afford your long-term-care when the policy pays out.

Not only is the average policy not enough to cover the cost of this type of care, but people don't take health-care inflation into account.

But since those states are already chopping away at health-care inflation, the Clinton plan may not offer them as much help in restraining costs.

Discussions of health care in the U.S. usually focus on insurance companies, but, whatever their problems, they're not the main driver of health-care inflation: providers are.

These costs are among the fastest-rising items in persistent health-care inflation.