1.   And lowering the number of unnecessary tests and procedures, lawmakers say, should lower the cost of health care.

2.   -- Make cities conduct too many unnecessary tests on their water supplies.

3.   Damon Clinical Laboratories Inc. admitted it tried to boost its profits by submitting the unnecessary tests.

4.   Doctors order unnecessary tests, and the price of health care goes up.

5.   HMOs say their financial arrangements with doctors discourage the doctors from ordering unnecessary tests and medical procedures.

6.   In past cases involving labs the government has found that doctors ordered unnecessary tests by tacking them on to prescribed ones.

7.   Independent analysts, federal investigators and consumer groups disagreed and said the changes proposed by House Republicans would lead to an increase in unnecessary tests and procedures.

8.   Insurance companies bemoan unnecessary tests.

9.   Just as fear of lawsuits encourages doctors to order unnecessary tests and other treatments, so will HMOs, Gibbons said.

10.   Some health care experts contend that the nation has too many doctors, who drive up costs by ordering unnecessary tests and expensive procedures.