Commentary By Ron Beasley
Here in my State of Oregon it was announced this week that health insurance premiums will be going up 16 percent in 2010. Some employers will increase the amount of the employees share while some small and medium sized businesses will be priced out and have to drop coverage. The reason for the increase is the runaway cost of health care.
The recommendations this week to reduce the frequency of testing for breast cancer and cervical cancer have created the firestorm one might expect but at the same time high lite the reason why medical care is so expensive in the US. Kevin Sacks takes a look at it in the well titled article - Screening Debate Reveals Culture Clash in Medicine. Not much new but the first paragraph makes it worth of a read.
This week, the science of medicine bumped up against the foundations of
American medical consumerism: that more is better, that saving a life
is worth any sacrifice, that health care is a birthright.
Of course as I pointed out here more is not always better but it is always profitable so false hope is marketed like soap and cars. The wise old doctor I went to for years once told me when I went in for a cold that if he wrote me a prescription my cold would last for a week if he didn't it would last for seven days. But we all want that magic pill or that test that will make us feel more secure. As I have said here before while the insurance companies may play a part in rising health care costs they are not the problem. As a society we simply can't afford to prescribe drugs and perform tests and procedures that do little but give people a warm fuzzy feeling but contribute little else to their health.
None of the current health care bills attack the real problem of costs and in fact may actually drive costs up for the majority. While there may be a political price to pay for no health care bill an even bigger price will be payed for one that doesn't help the majority. The health care system is near a breaking point as fewer and fewer people will be able to afford insurance even if it's offered. Making the real changes - eliminating medical consumerism, cannot be addressed until even more people find themselves left out of the health care system. The changes that need to be made will be labeled rationing and that label will stick until a majority have no health care at all.
I have nothing to say against the larger points you make. I certainly don't have enough factual knowledge to comment on the swelling cost of health care in the US.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I did want to highlight the political stupidity of domestic policy continually knocking women. Why is national debate focused on the screening of breast and cervical cancer, and not, say, prostrate cancer? I could understand women being outraged about the rationing of tests since there will obviously be some level of negative outcome as a result. On top of the abortion wars heating up again, it just seems like the patriarchy is getting belligerent again.
I would suggest, as a political trade-off for lessening the screening of cervical cancer, that insurance companies fully bear the cost of HPV vaccine for all teenage girls. It would be wonderful P.R. for them, and may even be a cost-benefit in the long run.
Sorry to veer OT.
The solution to all of this is so simple. Smash the military-industrial complex and withdraw the legions. This would literally solve all of our problems.
ReplyDeleteThe insurance companies drive up administrative costs, I'm not sure why you think that's not a huge part of the problem.
ReplyDelete"Why is national debate focused on the screening of breast and cervical cancer, and not, say, prostrate cancer?"
Prostate cancer was in the headlines just recently and it was virtually the same story (the false positives causing unnecessary invasive procedures and doing more harm than good, namely, but they were also suggesting that some prostate cancers should simply go untreated - as they're, the story went, often slow growing enough that the cure is worse than the disease).
I mean, sfHeath asked about "the national debate" and I know I'm not speaking to that: I had no idea that there was such a thing but it sounds like it'd be an even bigger waste of time than commenting on blogs. But the prostate thing was really in the news, even if this national debate thing ignored it.