Health Care Costs
Welcome back!
Health care costs, and how to get them under control, is one of today’s most important issues. It is at the forefront of President Obama’s agenda, as well it should be. The big problem is that everyone has a different idea of how costs should be controlled, with each interested group trying desperately to protect their own turf, or rather, their own income stream.
An article in the current New Yorker’s Annals of Medicine column [I know, I know - as a line from a play I once saw went, "Life's too short for the New Yorker." but, if you're at all interested in the topic, this article is a must read] discusses one the key issues surrounding the debate, the profit motive. Now, although I am a proponent of a single-payer system, there is nothing inherently wrong with delivering health care for profit. Some have even called this immoral. What is immoral is when health care decisions are made solely for profit, at the patient’s expense. This problem is pervasive within the health care delivery system, and while much of it may be unconscious, much is not.
There are, of course, many other factors that contribute. A disproportionate amount of our health care dollars are spent on treating preventable conditions. This is a well documented fact. Diet and lifestyle changes (see my previous blog posts on cholesterol) should be at the top of every doctor’s list. But even when they are, many patients, if not most, are simply unwilling to take responsibility for their own health and make the changes that will save their lives.
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May 15th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
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