Obama's latest healthcare plan, poised to save $2 trillion over 10 years, will challenge our individualist society to now take a collective approach- some dare say socialist (!). In a recent NPR story (NPR, Orszag: Health Coalition's Plan A Significant Step), U.S. Budget Director, Peter Orszag, says that the main factor driving this plan forward: "I have never seen the doctors' association, the hospitals' association, pharma, and device manufacturers step forward and say, 'We believe we can take costs out of the system. We believe we can bend the curve on long-term cost growth...That is different." Among the coalition's plans for these huge savings, include electronic health records, coordination of care, and comparative effectiveness research of treatments.
Has the recession made even the worst enemies understand that 'we are all in this together' and realize that our healthcare system has become so unsustainable that even corporate insurance giants must be part of an outcomes driven system as opposed to a profit driven system? Perhaps, but let's not forget for a second that there is a lot of money to be made in universal health insurance, upgrading health technology, and even prevention initiatives. Will these die-hard American capitalists, lobbyists, and politicians embrace a new approach to healthcare and will the recession help us avoid another Clintonian disaster? -Michelle Shal
I guess this is pretty obvious but when those pharmaceutical reps trot out the latest 'flavor-of-the-month' drugs, be this a new cholesterol and/or anxiety reducing product accompanied by glossy brochures and free samples, can you blame the doc for prescribing what he/she just heard? (And let's not forget that those reps are cute!) But seriously, Michelle raises significant questions, with the medical industry like the military-industrial complex of the 70s, we're the whole healthcare cabal nowadays. It's not so simple to unravel, esp. since certain parts of it work really well. It can be done.
ReplyDeleteThis morning my husband David, a recovering cancer patient had a docs appt with is continuously overbooked internist. We arrived to a unusually empty waiting room at 9:35am for a 9:45am appt. At 10:00am the front desk alerted us to the fact that the doc called in sick and would not be seeing patients. It took them 15 mins to tell us, the waiting room was empty so I assumed phone calls were made, no covering physician and no front desk training at all. Just rude! I understand things happen and the internist is probably so overworked that he is really sick.The "coalition's plan" Ha! Hospitals want to get paid to implement an efficient electronic health care system, coordinated care and even a comparative effectiveness of research of treatment. After testing the H1N1 vaccine on the Riker prisioners, who will be the first to get the effective vaccine, when will it be released, who will make the announcement? Hopefully the flu will not return before November 7th!
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