Understand Healthcare Reform in 2 Easy Steps

categories: Doctors and Nurses, For Profit Insurance, Health Care Around the World, Hospitals and Health Systems, Public Plan

Published November 01, 2009 @ 05:00AM PT

Money Medicine

If you’re tired of ignorant political sound bites in the healthcare debate, I have the cure. Better yet, it’s virtually free of public and private insurance discussions, with their associated pointed fingers. The film Money-Driven Medicine explores the reasons why the US spends more than twice what the next developed country does on healthcare, with terrible health outcomes. The story is told by in-the-trenches doctors, patients and their family members, a physician healthcare improvement leader, and a medical ethicist. It’s unique, highly educational and fascinating.

Join the Watch-In! for America’s Health now through November 10 for a systemic look at what’s really driving the cost and quality of our healthcare. Find out what’s compelling our healthcare spending, and why tweaking around the edges of our public health disaster won’t change a thing. In a nutshell, our country is unique in turning patients into profit centers.

Why join the Watch-In? Because Money-Driven Medicine:

“help(s) viewers distinguish between structural change and sham reform. It will convince them that a sound, sustainable medical infrastructure is crucial not just to their personal futures but to the economy and society as a whole – why curing America’s healthcare crisis could be a matter of national life and death.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Make a pledge to join the Watch-In! for America’s Health today. Of course, if you can stand more discourse on the insurance industry and public versus private insurers and providers, read and watch on.

I made the mistake of watching T.R. Reid’s special, Can We Really Fix U.S. Healthcare?, about his experience exploring international universal healthcare systems, the night before the House revealed its new bill, HR 3962. As a result, I’m feeling a bit underwhelmed by Nancy Pelosi’s hard-fought victory. The LinkTV special is a summary of Reid’s book, The Healing of America, which explores both the how and the why of these healthcare systems. It’s an excellent primer on the 4 main types of healthcare systems, distinguished by who pays for and who provides the care. Watch it and be both entertained and sobered simultaneously, when you consider how far we have to go to even catch a glimpse of the best ones on the horizon.

Reid is also the creator of PBS’ special Sick Around the World, which gives an excellent summary of 5 international universal healthcare systems. No, it’s not just theory: he took his injured shoulder around the world with him, to see how each healthcare system would treat it.

But remember, before you click over to Reid’s insurer-patient-provider view of true developed nations, join the Medicine For Profit Watch-In for a refreshing, insurance-light look at some root problems in American health "care". Thanks to Change.org member CherokeeGirl for Change, who alerted me to both very worthwhile programs.

Photo http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3174/2689975613_187194cdaa.jpg //CC BY 2.0

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Comments (9)

One of the things that raises health care costs are unnecessary 'standard procedures' and plain old waste. A few examples: manditory breast biopsy the day before the tumor was to be removed and biopsied again anyway.

               'selling' me two full bottles of dry shampoo for the two times they washed my hair - one bottle is enough for at least 15 uses.

              sending me home with 10 pillows(once you use them, they're yours) and enough sterile gauze pads to start my own clinic.

           poor coverage by the nursing staff which led to my transfer to the ICU and extended my hospital stay by at least 3 days.

          I refused 2 of the ordered medications (AFTER I was out of ICU) but no one informed the doctors, so it kept coming for days and apparently was being thrown away.

         It might be useful to speak to speak directly to patients, doctors, and other health care providers before deciding what to 'fix' and what to leave alone.

Posted by donna rosenthal on 11/01/2009 @ 12:18PM PT
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Having seen Money-Driven Medicine on PBS, I wonder why technology is credited with bringing the cost of things down in every economic activity except medicine. Is medical technology inherently more expensive or do medical establishments just charge more for using it?

Having seen T.R. Reid's Sick Around the World and Michael Moore's Sicko, I did not get the impression the British or the French used medical technology more sparingly or provided fewer services as both countries have doctors that make house calls. However, in both countries, doctors made less than their American counterparts.

Posted by Martin Bring on 11/01/2009 @ 06:06PM PT
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Mind you that other countries do not allow medical students to graduate with huge amounts of debt nor do they allow absentee landlords to charge doctors exorbitant rents for a place to practice medicine.

Posted by Martin Bring on 11/01/2009 @ 06:16PM PT
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Four reasons come to mind:

1) In medicine, technology is an addition to other care, not a replacement for it. So the cost is additive.

2) Profit motive: Studies have shown that medical groups that purchase imaging machines (MRI, CT) dramatically ramp up their use of such studies, even when it's completely outside of clinical guidelines. For instance, with unspecified acute-onset back pain, imaging is only recommended after watchful waiting, rest and anti-inflammatories don't work. Instead, groups with imaging equipment do the study right away.

3) No cost controls. The owner of the machine can charge whatever he wants for the study. If in-network, he accepts a negotiated insurance payment. If out-of-network, the patient gets stuck paying whatever the balance between reasonable and actual is, with no recourse. For example, a head CT in the UK is $179; in the US it is $1,800. Same CT!

4) Culture: In the US we tend to expect that if the technology is out there, we should automatically get it. Countries with universal healthcare, where the cost is conspicuously coming out of everyone's pocket, tend to be more conservative.

I agree our medical students do have higher debt loads than in any other country. But it shouldn't be that big an ongoing factor. PhDs have debt from even more years of schooling, and make a fraction of what MDs/DOs make!

Posted by Gillian Hubble on 11/02/2009 @ 11:06AM PT
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Gillian,

Thank you, thank you, thank you .... ;-)

Posted by Martin Bring on 11/03/2009 @ 05:01PM PT
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Intresting...

Posted by Thomas McHugh on 11/01/2009 @ 07:11PM PT
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My favorite fact from the movie:

Typical doctors are $200K in debt when leaving med school. That is roughly $2,000 a month just to pay that back in 10 years. Add a modest house at $1,000 a month for mortgage. Calculate the national averages for expenses at 30%...

With those costs alone, new doctors have to make $120K a year just to barely make ends meet. Plus, they are now in the 35% or more tax bracket for being "rich".

Doctors: you spent 8+ years of school, huge debt, crappy hours, lawsuits, and now the country thinks you are a villain and taking advantage of everyone. That's just sad.

My doctors and their staff are awesome... worth every penny they got from my insurance. I got a new metal hip in less time than it took to get my drivers license renewed at the DMV. Our medical system rocks! Not looking forward to my doctors having to do business like the DMV. :-(

Posted by Jason Jaytheman on 11/02/2009 @ 05:07PM PT
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Health care reform is being promoted by more doctors than not.. largely becasue they understand what you do not.

Posted by Martin Bring on 11/03/2009 @ 12:30PM PT
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Martin, I imagine that you mean tort reform that is promoted by doctors. Doctors are not looking for reform based on the fact that some movie maker labels all doctors as greedy.

Posted by Jason Jaytheman on 11/03/2009 @ 06:38PM PT
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