Perhaps it's good to recognize the triumphs of American Medicine as well as its failures. It seems care for complex medical problems is outstanding in the US, but at extremely high cost. Care for everyday medical problems seems quite spotty and also too costly. American (US) medicine operates as a highly regulated Cartel in which access to drugs and care is highly regulated and restricted. It would seem that any kind of single payer government run medicine in the US would likely just result in huge costs being transferred to the Federal balance sheet, unless, and only if, the power of the Cartel can be broken. And that would take some doing! The pervasive control of medicine in the US starts with the seemingly innocuous but ridiculous warning "Check with your doctor before beginning any exercise program." and goes from there. My personal favorite:"ordering drugs from Canadian pharmacies can be dangerous, as the FDA has no control over Canadian drugs." It seems to me that the answer to bringing down costs in the US lies in breaking the power of the Cartel. Prescribing pharmacists and nurses as in other countries would go a long way. Also patient oversight of medical billing is needed (coding needs to be spelled out in layman's terms for benefit of patients so that they can notify their insurance companies when coding is being up-ranked to extract a higher fee. (a common practice) We need many low cost retail clinics, and we are finally starting to see that. But the AMA is trying to control them via regulation as well, and with the help of the FDA. I would dearly like to see the US give capitalism and free enterprise with competition a try. The results might be quite satisfactory.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa12te_the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-hea_fun <img src=http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=2536676>
Sure spinn, I am sure the doctor got that whole 73k. I guarantee the ER doc who saw that pt made less than 150/hr... but you'd pay that to a plumber or an ugly hooker in a second for an hours work. good luck with that.. that was an institutional bill (likely the medical center). 11Blade.
Another brilliant solution. You'd have every physician practicing more defensive medicine than ever ordering every test under the sun, leaving no stone unturned at the price of 10's of trillions of dollars so they can win all their malpractice suits... absolutely brilliant stuff. please bottle this, and sell it to Obama and his trial-lawyer friends, it would be a gold mine. wait a sec, maybe you should do it 3 times a year.. that way florida would have no licensed physicians inside of 2 years..(u lose your license after 5 malpractice suits win or lose) good luck 11Blade
Why dont crooked drs learn to intertpret the tstsinstead OF GTTING A KICKBACK ANd Blaming the unnecessary testing on lawyers/
Patients have no power and if they have a disease are OFTEN not correctly diagnosed. The US has wonderful surgeons with anything that shows up on an MRI or an X-ray, but for infectious diagnosing diseases or parasites, if you are not in the military your chances of being correctly diagnosed are less than 50%. Pray you never pick up a Russian tapeworm or fastidious gram negative bacteria, because they can't culture them ,won't test for them and can't identify the signs in samples when they do. One is more likely to be killed by a civilian Dr than a car because they are purblind, arrogant and there is no quality control. Civilian drs get paid, for contact not for a cure, except, I think for the Mayo clinic, where Drs are on salary and are paid based on the percentage of favorable outcomes for their patients. Reform the system starting with Medical Education. Restrict the FDA to publishing test results. No Veto power. Ban drug advertising Approve prescribing nurses and pharmacists.
You may be disillusioned with medical care but to say "OFTEN" misdiagnosed is clever catch-all for a very complex science. I guess its true that at least 3 people are misdiagnosed and therefore its OFTEN but make no mistake, the "practice" of medicine is by no means perfect and neither are the best doctors on this planet who also "OFTEN" misdiagnose. As for paid on salary, almost all tertiary centers that are university hospitals salary their doctors many with outcome incentives.. As for a nurse or pharmacists prescribing you medication, many practices today use adjunctive care providers such as PA's (physcian assistants) or Nurses Practitioners who write prescriptions.. but in the end, if something goes wrong... you SUE the doctor who is supervising them.. I don't have a problem with you seeing someone for something minor and have them prescribe you something without an in-depth knowledge of all your medical conditions, just SUE them when something goes wrong, make them buy malpractice.. We will see how many errors someone with 3 years of school will make. Bash physicians all you want, people remained misinformed that the problem lies with the phsyicians, they work within a rules system setup by insurance companies, bureacratic cronies and trial-lawyers.