While I know it grabs the eye, it really didn’t matter what the article was about. The headline says it all: Doctors are the problem, not the system, right?
-WesMusings of a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist.
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
The top vote-getting answer on my poll about what people feel about the election: Different lunatics, same asylum. We are getting jaded by our system. Being the “flaming moderate” that I am, I find it hard to hear the substance of the rhetoric on either side, just the shrillness and rancor of the voices.
From the physician’s perspective, it is very hard to know who to favor in this election. The democrats seem to love lawyers and hate tort reform, and they also favor an expansion of government. The republicans love big businesses and “free market,” accepting the bad behavior of insurance and drug companies as “the market working itself out.” They both seem hell-bent on sticking it to the other party at the expense of getting anything done — and this in a time of crisis for our industry.
The results of this playground brawl between the two gangs of bullies is that all of us wimpy kids (the ones without power) end up lying bloody in the dirt. Here are the facts as I see them about healthcare in our country:
1. It costs far too much. The top item on the agenda needs to be cost control. The only way to control cost is to stop paying for things that are unnecessary or for which there is a cheaper alternative. I know that’s not simple as it sounds, but so much of the discussion is about coverage and how things are paid, while the real issue is not who pays, it’s what and how much gets paid. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Distractible Mind*
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