Budget impact:

• Petroleum is used widely in health care—primarily as a transport fuel and feedstock for pharmaceuticals, plastics, and medical supplies—and few substitutes for it are available. This dependence theoretically makes health care vulnerable to petroleum supply shifts, but this vulnerability has not been empirically assessed.
• Petroleum consumption is essentially to the extended care model growing in the United States. Ancillary services that extend care into patient homes constitute a significant and growing component of the health care system.