Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:58:48 -0700 (PDT) From: Gilbert Lawrence <gilbert2...@yahoo.com>
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-bowron/americas-health-care-addi_b_301318.html Excerpts: America, it's time to sober up. We've become addicted to high-cost, high-tech, average health care, and breaking this addiction will solve our financial problems, not vice versa. When it comes to health care, Americans want everything, the works: an antibiotic "just in case" the bronchitis isn't from a virus; an MRI of the back, not because the clinical scenario is worrisome, but because we've been reading about spinal cord tumors on the Internet. Giving patients what they want -- meeting their expectations, efficacy and costs be damned -- keeps them happy, if not healthy; and happy patients don't sue. Yes, some physicians practice the unproven for profit, gaming a system which stupidly pays more for doing more, regardless of the efficacy of "more". But most physicians dabble in the gray zones of medicine because doing something avoids having to discuss the sobering details of the latest medical research ("Here's why you don't need this test"), the likes of which contribute to a sense of professional ineptness. For competitive or legal reasons (both in the case of bone marrow transplants for breast cancer), private insurers have had difficulty saying "no" to unproven therapies. We need to keep chasing down miracles, but we won't build a futuristic health care system by bankrupting the current one. We'll get there by paying for proof, by developing a keen eye for treatments that are both great science and great medicine, and by admitting to our anxiety-ridden souls that life will forever have limits and uncertainty. Mario responds: The title of this post is misleading because it only mentions in passing why most physicians in America do what some other PHYSICIAN - like the author - thinks they should do or not do when it's someone else's patient. Physician Craig Bowron writes an impassioned article that would only make sense if physicians in America did not have the prospect of being sued if something goes wrong and they hadn't done everything that an enterpising personal injury LAWYER would expect them to do, rather than sound medical practice. These lawsuits, often frivolous, drive up malpractice insurance premiums. They also force physicians to practice medicine defensively, which meand higher costs, and both these factors are significant reasons why medical costs in America are higher than elsewhere. Because the trial lawyers in America are one of the biggest contributors of campaign funds to President Obama and Democrat party politicians, none of the proposals being considered seriously address this problem or seek to control it. President Hussein acknowledges this problem when talking to physicians, and ignores it when talking to his fellow lawyers and has so far not insisted on tort reform as a key ingredient in reducing health care costs in the US. Here are some articles that discuss this thorny issue: http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed092209e.cfm http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=111&subsecID=138&contentID=254574
