To the Editor.
—When it comes to medicine, the media seem fond of sensational headlines. I was more than a little surprised then when I read Dr Zimmerman's editorial.1 A repetition of the media-inspired common wisdom that all health care is too costly greeted the reader. I would like to at least ask the question, should we accept this position without analysis?Various estimates of the ophthalmic health care bill place it in the $2-billion-plus range. Is this too much or too little? A billion dollars is a lot of money and hard to comprehend. When one considers expenditures in other areas it can provide a yardstick by which to measure health care costs. In an article about Christmas toys, the Wall Street Journal reported that the "video game retail business is expected to chalk up $3.5 billion, up 52% from $2.3 billion last year" (in sales) (November 21,1989:B1).