Cost, Coverage and Quality - a link about Health Care Reform

T. R. Reid, a journalist who studied the health care systems in other "first world" countries to look for answers to our nations's health care crisis. PBS's NewsHour featured an interview with him today:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/health/healthreform/

Around 6:17 is where I really perked up. What Reid points out is that in these other countries, the first focus, the baseline was to get everyone covered by health insurance and then manage costs and quality after that goal was met. Here, it seems, we are trying to manage costs then look to cover everyone and ensure quality.

That made a light bulb go off in my head. We should have it as a right not a privilege that every person have health insurance and then figure out the best ways to do it after it's set. Otherwise, isn't it like that gopher game at arcades? Once you hit one hole something pops up in another. Once you cover everyone, you have less ER visits, less overhead costs getting absorbed in the system..etc, etc.

There's lots of waste in our health care system, but that seems to me a secondary level of concern. You know, if there's a flood, don't start checking your bank account to make sure you can get new drywall before you stop the leaking and sop up the water.

Another good link:

"Money-Driven Medicine" on Bill Moyer's Journal - http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08282009/profile.html

The Business of Health

I'm horrified and forlorn as I listen to this story on Fresh Air about how health care providers over-order too many things, tell patients to schedule an appointment rather than follow up calls because they make money off of visits and other despairing things occurring around the nation...

Listen to the interview with Dr. Atul Gawande, doctor and Boston's Brigham and Women's (down the street from where I live) and staff writer for The New Yorker (very far away from where I live):
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105483669

I heard another story the other day of a Massachusetts task force declaring that we need to completely overhaul the health care model by shifting the focus from healing the sick to maintaining the health of the healthy. The incentive gets shifted to wellness and maintaining it, rather than patching up the sick...This is how it is explained on WBUR.org's coverage page:

The idea is to spend less on health care by rewarding doctors for helping patients stay healthy instead of rewarding them delivering unlimited care when patients get sick. If that sounds straightforward, it’s not.

Full story from WBUR is here:

http://www.wbur.org/2009/05/27/health-cost-control