Thursday, May 05, 2005
Fixing Healthcare: An Introduction
Fixing healthcare in America. Shit. What a mess. Four issues. The health of Americans. The quality of care. Access to care. The cost of care.
Our national health. Fuck. It sucks. Especially considering how much we pay out. We lag many countries in significant measure like life expectancy. We are the fattest nation to be sure. Diabetes is on the rise and pretty much an epidemic already. Even though we live longer than ever, those years are often in less than healthy status. We are pumped full of medications. Many of us spend the so-called "Golden Years" in a care setting.
Quality of care. When you can get it, it's pretty good. Why the fuck would so many foriegners come here for treatment? Our doctors are among, if not the best in the world. Hardly perfect, but medicine is still an art that uses science as a tool. Sure, there is room for improvement, but its pretty good.
Access. Sucks pretty much. Try to get an appointment even with insurance. Incompetent systems for scheduling. Office staff are often less than helpful or usefull. Insurance companies do all they can to reduce utilization. Overall quite inefficient.
Cost. Help!!! This will drive us broke. Medicare is truly scary when you look to the future with an ever sicker and older population, not to mention newer and more expensive treatments. Its already a huge issue and gets more expensive every year. And the socialistic cry for universal care will only make things worse-much worse.
So we have outlined four issues. Quality of care is good, so we can focus on the other three. Access is something we can solve, especially with modern technology, to a reasonable level. The health of Americans has some real solutions that are simple, but not so easy to actually implement. I will adress this in a future entry. But my big focus will be on costs. No easy solution will be offered. Just speculations and the generation of ideas.
Prepare to be upset.
Our national health. Fuck. It sucks. Especially considering how much we pay out. We lag many countries in significant measure like life expectancy. We are the fattest nation to be sure. Diabetes is on the rise and pretty much an epidemic already. Even though we live longer than ever, those years are often in less than healthy status. We are pumped full of medications. Many of us spend the so-called "Golden Years" in a care setting.
Quality of care. When you can get it, it's pretty good. Why the fuck would so many foriegners come here for treatment? Our doctors are among, if not the best in the world. Hardly perfect, but medicine is still an art that uses science as a tool. Sure, there is room for improvement, but its pretty good.
Access. Sucks pretty much. Try to get an appointment even with insurance. Incompetent systems for scheduling. Office staff are often less than helpful or usefull. Insurance companies do all they can to reduce utilization. Overall quite inefficient.
Cost. Help!!! This will drive us broke. Medicare is truly scary when you look to the future with an ever sicker and older population, not to mention newer and more expensive treatments. Its already a huge issue and gets more expensive every year. And the socialistic cry for universal care will only make things worse-much worse.
So we have outlined four issues. Quality of care is good, so we can focus on the other three. Access is something we can solve, especially with modern technology, to a reasonable level. The health of Americans has some real solutions that are simple, but not so easy to actually implement. I will adress this in a future entry. But my big focus will be on costs. No easy solution will be offered. Just speculations and the generation of ideas.
Prepare to be upset.
