Jan

25

Failing Healthcare Systems

Posted by cameron

January 25, 2007 |

It’s interesting to compare doctors today versus their counterparts just 30 years ago. When I think of modern day doctors and dentists I can’t help but see Henry Ford’s influence applied to the medical profession; ”keep them lined up and keep them moving. Have workstations to do each task then move them to the next workstation.” It’s like herding cattle in its way. Head ‘em up; move ‘em out.

I’m not big on looking backwards except in Genealogy and loving memories of people who are no longer with us. I spent the first 30 years of my life in the British healthcare system. Home visits by doctors were normal. “Why bring a sick person into my waiting room” he would say. He had a point. But house calls take time. The English system is public healthcare and doctor’s income is not driven by how many people per hour he sees. It is not a production line system it is healthCARE. The downside of course is that it doesn’t have limitless income through taxation and there has been constant pressure to control spending (read: cut spending). The payment of medical bills through taxation means that the wealthy pay and the poor do not, everyone else being somewhere between those two extremes. Over the years services have been reduced to the point now that medical insurance top-up coverage is now fairly common. So the English system is evolving to look like our Medicare system. It seems we will all meet in the middle with some government coverage plus some private top-up insurance.

While the welfare state in England has been unraveling, US doctors have not been standing still. They have the medical production line down to an art. You go in the waiting room to wait; then your name is called and you go back into another room to…wait; eventually the doctor comes in and probably prescribes a pill. Gotta keep the production line moving. He goes from room to room to room as fast as possible. Turnover = profits. Boy, does that sound familiar. A new patient enters the waiting room at one end and a new prescription leaves at the other. Keep the line moving boys. Time is money!

So the modern medical insurance system is becoming very expensive for companies and individuals alike. More and more people are either subscribing to low-grade insurance (read: cheap) or they are just not insuring themselves. Hospital emergencies will always be taken care of whether you have coverage or not, but fewer and fewer people are indirectly picking up that bill through increasing premiums. More and more people being supported by less and less people. This is welfare in disguise. So, if this is the trend, it seems we are moving in the direction of a welfare state where fewer and fewer “haves” support the emergencies of the “have-nots”, which is where I started. How did that happen?


Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. Toni on August 8, 2007 5:36 pm

    My husband and I were insured through the AFL-CIO Local #79. When my husband passed away last year the Union took away my insurance and is making me pay for it when I have a resolution signed by the board members and two president’s of the Local that I was to get coverage for my lifetime. My husband worked and fought for healthcare coverage for thirty years for union members, what a slap in the face!

  2. cameron on August 8, 2007 9:09 pm

    I’m sorry to hear that. It sounds like you might have grounds for a lawsuit.

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