> gMoney wrote: > While out playing football with my friends, I come down awkwardly on my > knee. It hurts for several days, so I go see my doctor. I pay him my $15 > dollar co pay, he refers me to a knee specialist. The specialist sees me the > next day, diagnoses a torn ACL, suggests surgery if I want to remain active.
Well, for me this is a story that supports the argument that we have a broken system. This is essentially Dana's 'externalities' argument for polluters: you're able to impose costs on the system as whole through your choice of "profitable" activity without ever paying those costs yourself. For me, the US healthcare system is a classic case of divorcing the individual from the market. The system we have today started after WWII and so we've got 3 generations of people who, if employed, are used to not thinking at all about protecting their healthcare dollar and this includes all the constituents: patients, insurance, doctors, hospitals, labs, pharma. In every case the constituent derives their living, or receives their goods, through a cloaked payment system. Think if car ownership worked the same way: * If you're employed you can pick out a car for a $15 co-pay * If you crashed you also only paid $15. * No job, no car - you use the bus system which the bus company has to pay for. What would we be left with? A lot of people crashing up Ferraris on the freeway, clogging them up, and a lot of people walking. And a lot of people telling us it's the freeway system that's broken. What's broken is that the consumer has been separated from his healthcare dollar, and the providers have been separated from their core customer. We can solve this via 2 routes: * we can totally eliminate the market economy for healthcare which, by its nature, must include rationing * We can devise a uniquely American solution using markets which, by its nature, must include a smarter consumer Of course the 3rd option seems to be where we're going: * Preserve the existing system, but expand the safety net. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:299679 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
