I’m Glad Economists Aren’t Practicing Medicine
I was invited to speak at the National Library of Medicine’s 2010 Annual Conference. Today I heard fellow speaker Uwe Reinhardt, Ph.D., discuss healthcare economics, and although his presentation was entertaining, as a physician I found it to be rather disturbing.
On the one hand I understand Reinhardt’s desire to engage Americans in a rational conversation about limited healthcare resources. My friend Dr. Rich Fogoros has been calling for this for many years. Yet, I was disappointed by his enthusiastic reductionism — that peoples’ lives should be reduced to a mere societal cost equation. He also said that, “When America grows up, it will look a lot more like Europe,” and cited a conversation with Dr. Phil Gingrey as an example of the congressman’s over-valuing human life. Read more »