While not really related to the story....I will point this out. German doctors over the past decade....have now become acquainted with giving more and more patients....paceboes. What they’ve come to realize....while patients got smarter and demanded the newest and most advertised drugs....they really didn’t need them. So, rather than waste state funding on unnecessary drugs....they prescribed cheap paceboes (herbal remedies).
Now, I’m not going to say we’ve got a problem here with costly modern medicines. But I suspect that fifty percent of the drug sales going on today...are just wasted money.
You won't get an argument from me on that.
Testing too.
But lawsuit abuse has greatly harmed health care too (lots of false positives and patients being run through the gambit of tests so doctors can CYA from legions of personal injury lawyers).
"Follow the money" applies to all who have perpetrated this fraud on patient-consumers.
Who do you trust? Not the government who now is telling us, "Oh! You didn't need all those tests." "Oh! This and that is really BAD for you." Not the drug companies that advertize non-stop.
Our health care system is far beyond that which would exist if the individual or even private health care insurers were footing the bill directly.
The Law of Unintended Consequences is still in force.
I know you are correct. Seniors swill an astonishing number of pills for everything under the sun, even pills to help other pills. Seniors and everyone else.
Reading a story like this, I am of two minds.
It’s true that socialism (govt. run) economies result in chaos & shortages
It’s also true that pharmaceutical companies are lobbying to keep taxpayer subsidies flowing to them for [often unneeded] prescriptions for the elderly and others. What Sarah Palin and Mark Levin call “Crony Capitalism.” The headline is a bit over the top; sounds like political boilerplate written by Pharm Industry lobbyists.
So Pepsi — I do agree with you. Many elderly are lonely and/or bored, and so just VISITING a doctor’s office or the nurse can be a morale booster, and enhance their well-being. It has nothing to do with the procedure or the medication the doctor prescribes. (Have you noticed who NICE to you they are at the medical center, often times nicer than your own family or friends?) ;)
But many elderly do in fact need the drugs they are prescribed for a serious medical condition. It is not just corrupt lobbying by the Pharms that’s the issue.