Posted by
Feline Pjs on Monday, July 20, 2009 10:56:55 AM
I am a 67 year old retired registered nurse, and worked for 46 years in the health care field.
"Health Care Reform" has come to be synonymous with “Universal Health Care INSURANCE". But even if I agreed with concept - which I don't - do we really want everyone to have access to a huge system that is already broken – maybe beyond repair?
Here's what I know to be true:
Pharmaceutical companies spend billions on the creation of designer drugs and marketing them to physicians and - many of which work no better than the older, safer stand-bys. Where’s the talk about reforming the pharmaceutical industry to bring down costs of medications?
Physicians and other health care providers are given little, if any, training on prevention of disease. Where’s the talk about improving training so we can prevent disease, rather than waiting until it happens to spend big bucks treating it?
Alternative and holistic treatment modalities, such as acupuncture, have failed to make it into mainstream medicine, even though their efficacy has been proven ten times over. Where’s the talk of reforming insurance to cover these proven methods of treatment, which are much cheaper than some of the traditional treatments?
Hospitals and other providers spend mega millions yearly on marketing – even sometimes promoting a “disease du jour” to justify state-of the art equipment and clinics. Where’s the talk about putting a stop to this in order to reign in hospital costs?
Unnecessary diagnostic tests and procedures are performed out of fear of litigation in our suit-crazy country. Has anyone thought to address this issue in the health care reform debates?
Health care providers are mired in a sea of redundant paperwork and regulations. The “Paperwork Reduction Act” is a joke and has already resulted in more paperwork and tangled layers of beaurocracy.
Universal health care is not going to solve any of these problems or make them go away. Sure, we can give every man, woman, and child access to a health care system that is broken almost beyond repair – but should we? Health care reform is a much bigger and more complex issue than the provision of access to “health care" - such as it is.
But the idea sounds nice, and appeals to the masses – and fixing the other problems would offend too many lobbyists with big bucks to spread around Washington.