TW: Of all of the hundreds of pages on health care I have read over the past months there are two articles that stand out. A New Yorker piece written by a doctor/writer from June that was widely linked but is a must read. It honed in on some of the reasons American health care costs are escalating and escalating at increasing rates regardless of who pays.
And a more recent Atlantic piece by a businessman who tries albeit not completely successfully to frame a consumer driven solution to what ails our system. Both articles are relatively long (5-10 pages) but if you are serious about understanding the problem then they are the type pieces one should tackle.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care
2 comments:
I just finished the New Yorker piece. Sounds smart to me.
He put his finger on the core problem: that it doesn't matter who is paying the bills. Insurance--whether public or private--has no power to keep the costs down.
AND, more importantly, he points out that the Mayo-Grand Junction model could very well dispense with the rationing question. That is, if every medical community could bring their costs down and care levels up to these, through simple, ethical and professional society among each other, the cost problem is solved.
I feel very satisfied having read this guy's study.
Are any of ideas anywhere represented in the 1000 pages of proposed legislation? Don't Dems read The New Yorker?
How would you suggest implementing the Mayo model? Why are they not doing so already "through simple ethical and professional societies"?
Alternatively how would the Dems avoid being accused of fomenting socialism if they proposed creating/incentivizing/imposing fixed salaried guilds across the country?
To be clear I would be thrilled to hear that such guilds were being formed across the country, I just do not see it happening.
ps I suspect(i.e.believe with little doubt) more Dems read New Yorker than Republicans
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