Re: OT - Medical Commercial

On Jul 22, 8:02 pm, Mike Burke <mbu...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

There are just so many cost factors in the health system that are
extremely difficult to control:

Yes, indeed there are problems. Mr. Burke has listed these - the
first four numbered points are valind no matter what the system. We
are indeed aging and thanks to the baby boomers, there are more old
bats like me. Medical technology is expensive on teh cutting edge and
everyone wants the very latest. As to his last point:

5.      Unreasonable demand:  In Australia, one of the big sticking
points is what is perceived by many as being an unreasonable demand
for the most trivial routine medical checkups to be fully paid for by
the Medicare system.  Once again it gets down to ideology or, as
Willow stated, the differing views about what sort of society we want
people to live in.  Yet, it is an invitation to World War III for
anyone to suggest that costs might more reasonably be controlled if
people were required to pick up the entire tab for routine medical
checkups and other "one off" type doctor visits.  I must admit to be
very intolerant of those who claim not to be able to afford to pay for
their routine maintenance visits to the doctor while they can afford
to play the horses, the slots, and to indulge themselves in other
ways.  Where do we draw the line?  Full indulgence as Willow obviously
favours, or something more like insurance against medical catastrophy
only?


Oh yes. Take a trip to the local emergency and see how many are there
for very routine matters. Coming from a medical family, I cannot
understand why anyone would go to emergency for a simple headache or
very minor cut. It is frustrating and one reason why a triage system
is in place, to priortize the cases waiting. One often hopes that
those lowest on the list get fed up and leave. They often do. One
also gets mad at those who abuse alcohol or street drugs and make a
nuisance of themselves.

After trying small fees and such, our system went back to no fee,
relying upon the emergency clerk for triage sorting. The major
problem that has emerged is simply that this person at times makes
mistakes. A person who appears relatively healthy might well be on
tghe verge of a heart attack. Often patients are not able to clearly
say what their problem is. And juggling priorities when an ambulance
arrives can creat mayhem.

Again I get back to basics - no system is perfect. Churchill was
right. Public medicare is horrible unless you compare it to
everything else.

Any system that denies its people choice is not a good system no
matter how ideologically correct it might be to some people.  Once the
government and its bureaucracy becomes involved, choice tends to
become more and more limited.  Governments can't run railways or
airlines properly.  Nor can they run medical systems properly.  Or so
it seems.

Well, in a word, yes. The problem being, all systems deny choice.
From the US, how much choice is there if premiums are beyond most
budgets? Or doctors with higher than normal fees. One has to have
some bureaucracy and it is hard to see which is worse - a
disinterested public serpent or a private cost cutting clerk. In
either case, mistakes and worse can and do happen. Nothing is
perfect.

So after all that, what does one do? Take the best possible solution,
which to me means not the least expensive system, but the one that
gives the most benefits. And after you discover mistakes or problems,
attempt to cure them without causing more mistakes or problems.

And bear in mind that every system will be subject to abuse. The
abuse will vary - but in any system there are those who are not
satisfied and want to rip off the system in one way or another. But
there will be ways to make a bigger buck and ways to get something for
free.

Like most human constructs, once the thing is up and running, it
requries constant fiddling. And doing X often results in a worse
result than doing Y did. One has to shake your head when ten
ambulances line up outside emergency wards and all the responders have
to wait with their patients until they can be passed on to the
hospital. Change that and someone dies unattended and everyone
howls. But at least the core is there and capable of doing better
things - our bus system for transport to specialists in Vancouver is
one example, I think.

Cost is always a concern. One quickly gets into the impossible
question - what is a life worth and is one life worth more than
another? Is my condition worth more than yours? Which of us should
be able to get relief first? Really the same issue as emergency wards
up a notch or two. My pain vs. yours. Who is to judge and how do you
triage that? No matter what you do, someone is going to be unhappy.
And with health care, likely someone will die.

No perfect answer. None.

I am glad we have our system, with all its faults.

Willow
.

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