[DeTomaso] observations about the high cost of health care

[Justin Greisberg]

I am horribly intertwined in the current health care system.  High costs come about from a bunch of things, all sharing the load:

1. the best care in the world (with lots of technology)

2. ridiculous legal environment - if anything in our world goes wrong, everyone except the individual must be to blame.  Doctors are taught (by recurrent malpractice claims) that they must order lots of tests, because if the one in a million diagnosis is missed, they will be blamed.

3. patients request (and doctors order) far too many tests.  for example, MRIs for routine shoulder and knee pain do not affect treatment, but they are done routinely.

4. the burden of the uninsured.  i especially am concerned with illegal residents, since they suck blood out of the system without giving anything back (no taxes, medicare payments, etc)

5. increasingly complex paperwork for insurers and governments.  definitely require more employees to do the same work as the old days.

 

Health care is expensive, and maybe it is OK that it is a large part of our GNP.  There is a reason why international dignitaries and celebrities all come here when they need something.  when is the last time one of our celebrities went to another country for surgery?  

 

If we dont address the above items, we will not control healthcare.  Yet, most politicians, especially the democrats, refuse to address the defective legal system.  To provide insurance through the government for more citizens is great, but there is no idea how to pay for that.  And if the government plans to "control" healthcare, as some have proposed, then we will take the best system in the world and cripple it.  The solution has to keep the free market system alive, since that is the best in the world.  Obama is trying to ram health care reform down our throats, yet there really is no good idea what to actually do.  I like the idea of patients paying a fixed percentage of everything that gets done - that way they have a "Stake" in keeping costs down.  with most insurance plans, the patient has no idea how much money s being spent.  The current government-sponsored insurance (medicaid) simply rewards bad behaviors, like welfare.  I'll get off my soapbox now (but someone did ask).  Justin Greisberg, MD

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