> Dana wrote: > wowie I could spend an afternoon with google trying to figure out what sam > is reading
If anyone cares to read the best end-to-end treatise on healthcare's problems and solutions, you can answer all your questions here. Unfortunately most people won't read it. And then they'll bitch about health care without understanding anything. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care Here are some highlights: -------------- * How was it possible that Dr. Pronovost needed to beg hospitals to adopt an essentially cost-free idea that saved so many lives? Heres an industry that loudly protests the high cost of liability insurance and the injustice of our tort system and yet needs extensive lobbying to embrace a simple technique to save up to 100,000 people. * For fun, lets imagine confiscating all the profits of all the famously greedy health-insurance companies. That would pay for four days of health care for all Americans. Lets add in the profits of the 10 biggest rapacious U.S. drug companies. Another 7 days. * The most important single step we can take toward truly reforming our system is to move away from comprehensive health insurance as the single model for financing care. And a guiding principle of any reform should be to put the consumer, not the insurer or the government, at the center of the system. * The government regularly tries to cap costs by limiting the reimbursement rates paid to providers by Medicare and Medicaid, and generally pays much less for each service than private insurers. But as weve seen, that can lead providers to perform more services, and to steer patients toward higher-priced, more lightly regulated treatments. * Cost control is a feature of decentralized, competitive markets, not of centralized bureaucracya matter of incentives, not mandates. Whats more, cost control is dynamic. * Although the population is rapidly aging, we have few geriatricians... Why? Because under Medicares current reimbursement system (which generally pays more to physicians who do lots of tests and procedures), geriatricians typically dont make much money. If seniors were the true customers, they would likely flock to geriatricians, bidding up their ratesand sending a useful signal to medical-school students. But Medicare is the real customer, and it pays more to specialists in established fields. And so, seniors often end up overusing specialists who are not focused on their specific heal ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| 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:302018 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
