| #10 | Commentary on Managed Care |
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Wednesday April 30, 2008 |
Commentary by
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This commentary will be one of referral to an article printed in the New York Times of 29 April 2008 entitled "As Doctors Get a Life, Strain Shows" By JACOB GOLDSTEIN. It highlights some of the reasons the field of health care is in a permanent trending toward a new model of how we will be receiving medical services in the years to come. It highlights WHO will be providing your medical care, but does not address how these services will be paid for... that is a quite another subject — one that is best addressed by the combined will of the public, the subject of my previous commentaries. Read this article: http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB120942599600151137.html The United States is one of the least healthy nations in the industrialized world, ranking 44th in the world in life expectancy and 41st in infant mortality. . . while spending at least twice as much on health care per person than does any other industrialized country. Why? Surely, this is a decidedly poor ROI for our health care dollars, don't you think? We do not invest our health premium dollars in "health" care but in sickness mitigation, with a significant portion being apportioned to the 'administrative overhead' of moving our premium dollars to insurance company staffs and dividends for the companies' stock holders. So why do we do this? We do not reward healthy lifestyles, but willing pay 27-30 % or more of this now-eroded premium dollar to managing 'disease mitigation' for the last 6 months of life. Much of these mitigation efforts are directed to ameliorate the effects of a lifetime of indulgence without regard to adhering to a healthy lifestyle. Again, why do we do this? Perhaps we need a real train wreck with our industry in order to get attention focused on health care vice disease mitigation. Only an informed, concerned and enjoined public will be able to effect change. I caution you... keep yourselves informed. The real revolution in health care lies ahead, and each of
us must become involved! |
