21.   And in the meantime friends have set up a fund to help pay his enormous medical costs.

22.   And more employers are pressing both white- and blue-collar workers to shoulder additional medical insurance costs as a way to combat the pinch such benefits place on profits.

23.   And since such antidepressants are fast-acting, cut-rate feel-good alternatives to extended psychotherapy, they are also welcomed by medical cost cutters.

24.   And to get a bill Johnson had to give up cost controls, an unwise omission that later inevitably encouraged spiraling medical costs.

25.   And the company must foot the bill for escalating medical costs.

26.   As employers and insurers try to cut medical costs in recent years, the health care industry has rapidly consolidated.

27.   As medical costs soar, more jails and prisons around the country are hiring private companies to take over their infirmaries.

28.   As more Americans sign up with networks or HMOs in the search for lower medical costs, doctors who are not aligned with the plans lose patients.

29.   At a time when government and business leaders are desperately seeking ways to reduce medical costs, the QV syndrome is taking its toll.

30.   At the same time, HMOs are boasting about driving down medical costs.