Bill Gates was interviewed at an Aspen Ideas Festival in 2010 and said that the USA must get medical costs under control and re-examine its funding priorities to prevent its education system from further erosion. He said medical costs are dominating state and federal budgets in the form of Medicare and other payments, and fewer funds are available for education.
Gates told Aspen Institute President and CEO Walter Isaacson that the USA had demonstrated an unwillingness to question if “spending $1 million on the last three months” of a person’s life is a cost-effective direction, especially considering the same amount of money can keep 10 teachers employed.
He called for the nation to do a better job of examining the benefits of costly end-of-life medical care. “That’s called the death panel and you’re not supposed to have that discussion,” Gates said, taking a jab at critics of the health care bill that the US Congress had considered earlier that year.
Hellbound and Down 