Critical Condition

Mother Jones ^ | 12/23/05 | MJ

[ConvienentCharade]

Hippocrates said: “First, do no harm.” The first rule of Wall Street, however, is: Make money. Critical Condition, by the investigative team of Barlett and Steele, is a story about how health care in modern America has become a racket: A few profit handsomely while doing the rest of us significant harm.

The United States, the authors write, took a fateful turn during the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s, when faith in the free markets ushered in policies that transformed not-for-profit hospitals, HMOs, and nursing homes into money-making operations. The marketplace was supposed to make America healthier by delivering preventive care to the masses while controlling costs; instead, patient care has suffered and costs have skyrocketed.

Americans are now saddled with “a second-rate system that doesn’t adequately cover half or more of the population,” the authors write. “Almost everyone involved is unhappy—patients, doctors, nurses, aides, technicians,” everyone but the financiers and select CEOs who continue to get rich.

But in reading Critical Condition, the buccaneers of medicine -- such as HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy -- aren’t nearly as scary as the corporate bureaucracy that kills: by losing MRIs that show cancer, by placing desperately ill patients in call-waiting hell, by allowing vital medical decisions to trickle down to clerks in call centers.

Barlett and Steele describe countless avoidable tragedies that they ultimately blame on “Wall Street Medicine.” The nation, they argue, would be far better served by a broad, single-payer system, like Medicare, and an agency that would oversee health care much as the Federal Reserve manages financial policy. But the authors also make a safe diagnosis: American health care will get worse before it gets better.

[ConvienentCharade]

It's all about the fear of death, IMHO

[CondorFlight]

If you want affordable medicine, and house calls by doctors,
then get a Good Samaritan law, and a workers compensation-type solution for injuries, instead of our screwball lawsuit Tort system, which forces every doctor to spend $200,000 a year on insurance, and makes him desperately afraid to make a mistake.
Start your reform there, and you'll see how it works wonders in the system.

[rellimpank]

--would be far better served by a broad, single-payer system, like Medicare, and an agency that would oversee health care much as the Federal Reserve manages financial policy--

--far enough--

[Slings and Arrows]

IBTZ?

[Rennes Templar]

An article in JAMA about 2 years ago reported that there are around 190,000 deaths per year caused by medical malpractice, adverse drug reactions, and hospital error and infections. That's a pretty good indictment of the whole system. I avoid medical practitioners/institutions like the plague.

[hubbubhubbub]

"If you want affordable medicine, and house calls by doctors"

Attack the Regulation, Taxation and Litigation aspects of it. In other words, get the government out of healthcare totally. No Medicare, No Medicaid, No FDA. Then make all healthcare tax deductible (not just employer provided). Then bust the Union (AMA). Then tort reform.

[scory]

First observation: no human system is perfectable.

Second observation: the national health systems of the socialist welfare states kill far more people due to neglect than the (relatively) free system we have here.

Third observation: as noted above much of our system is driven not by medical needs but by lawyers.

Fourth observation: as I recall HMOs were created by legislation passed by a congress dominated by democrats and were supposed to be THE answer to the "health care crisis".

Fifth observation: government involvement in just about anything is certain to weed out excellence and replace it with indifferent mediocrity.

[River_Wrangler]

History always repeats it's self. Why do we call for deregulation and bitch when we only deregulate parts of the system and don't get a free market effect. It is all or nothing! We gave away the market price regulating control to the insurance companies.

[basil]

You are exactly right. Anyone who thinks that the free market regulates medical care in this country has got rocks in his head.

Between the lawyers, the insurance companies, the "welfare" patients, etc, etc, it's surprising to me that we have medical care of any sort. Add to that the burden of Medicare patients, and we have a system overloaded with patients who can't, or or not allowed to pay for their medical care. How on earth can the free market work in circumstances like these?

[IronJack]

Hippocrates said: “First, do no harm.”

No he didn't. The LATIN phrase Primum, no nocere" was written years after Hippocrates, a Greek, wrote his treatises on medical ethics. While several of his writings contain sentiments similar in nature, nowhere does he use that exact phrase.

[monocle]

Medical insurance, whether private or governmental, drives up the price of medical care just like automobile insurance drives up the price servicing cars. When people begin to feel that they're not paying for something, they abuse it. Juries grant outrageous judgements because the feel the insurance companies will pay.

The other problem is that people want world class treatment without paying the price.

[ozzymandus]

I subscribed to Mother Jones for a couple of months many years ago. When I realized it was a big pile of anti_American left-wing hippie crapola, I canceled. Molly ivens often cites MJ as a source, which should tell you all you need to know.

[susannah59]

I've worked in healthcare over 20 years. I think the worst thing that ever happened to our healthcare system is government involvement. People have no clue how much that drives what happens in health care, and drives costs. I can't imagine how thinking people can believe that a single-payor system will improve things. I can't understand why they can't look at health care in countries like Britain and Canada and not see that the kind of health care happening there is not what people want here.

When the government gets involved, the law of unintended consequences takes over. Consider the EMTALA laws. Part of the original intent was very good- it was to prevent emergency rooms from performing wallet biopsies on seriously ill or injured patients and then punting the ones who couldn't pay. The unintended consequence is that you can take yourself or your kid to the ER for any silly little thing- pinkeye, a heat rash, a runny nose- and the ER is obligated to have you evaluated by a physician.

I've heard people argue that those are the folks who don't have a primary care provider or a way to pay. That's nonsense. A lot of the ER patients have access to clinics which are willing to see them, and have access to on-call providers 24/7/365, and just don't bother.

But I digress- government involvment tends to make things more complex, not less so. Getting the government completely out of the health care system would be the best thing that could happen. I don't expect that it will.

[darkangel82]

ibtz.

[Paul_Denton]

IBTZ!

[Paul_Denton]

Possible bogey.

[darkangel82]

By the way, it's spelled "convenient", dumbas*.

[MikefromOhio]

hey stupid, the costs skyrocketed because ass-munches like you got their panties in a twist and started SUING doctors for millions upon millions of dollars....

The only way to return it to the way it was is to cap the penalties, but the LIBERAL AMBULANCE CHASING LAWYER SCUMBAGS that infest the DemonRAT party won't like it.

[TChris]

Among the basic principles of life are these:

1. More government involvement always equals more inefficiency and higher costs. Anything positive is likely a fortunate oversight.
2. More lawyers always equals more inefficiency and higher costs. (Sound familiar? Perhaps that's because the government is largely manned by lawyers.)

if (GovernmentControl == true || LawyerCount > 0) then {
   --LikelihoodOfSuccess;
   ++Costs;
   ++PainForEveryone;
}

[darkangel82]

Also, check his posting history, very leftist-trollish.