healthcare: our national shame
Here's a chilling quote from a must read article in today's NYT about how three of four diabetes clinics providing preventive care shut down for lack of 'profitability' since their founding seven years ago, even as Type 2 diabetes cases doubled in NYC:
(Byzantine is right....our nation's health care system is in Critical Condition and has been for decades.)
The broader question is, as wu ming (someone I hope gets Best Commenter in the Wampum awards for all he's done at so many blogs) points out: because we put a financial incentive at the heart of our 'health care system' we don't do much preventive care at all. It doesn't "pay." That's perverse.
Preventive care, of course, benefits society as a whole. In fact, it's high time we started thinking about the nation's health as a national resource, something we protect, nurture, defend and pass on to the next generation.
The Republican Party is inexorably tied to the idea that the dollar incentive fixes everything. It doesn't. Not with the new Medicare Drug Plan, not with Social Security, and not with preventive care in the face of an unprecedented epidemic of diabetes.
The GOP does the bidding of the almighty dollar, and the almighty dollar would rather amputate your leg than help you stay healthy in the first place.
For shame.
They did not shut down because they had failed their patients. They closed because they had failed to make money. They were victims of the byzantine world of American health care, in which the real profit is made not by controlling chronic diseases like diabetes but by treating their many complications.
Insurers, for example, will often refuse to pay $150 for a diabetic to see a podiatrist, who can help prevent foot ailments associated with the disease. Nearly all of them, though, cover amputations, which typically cost more than $30,000.
Patients have trouble securing a reimbursement for a $75 visit to the nutritionist who counsels them on controlling their diabetes. Insurers do not balk, however, at paying $315 for a single session of dialysis, which treats one of the disease's serious complications.
(Byzantine is right....our nation's health care system is in Critical Condition and has been for decades.)
The broader question is, as wu ming (someone I hope gets Best Commenter in the Wampum awards for all he's done at so many blogs) points out: because we put a financial incentive at the heart of our 'health care system' we don't do much preventive care at all. It doesn't "pay." That's perverse.
Preventive care, of course, benefits society as a whole. In fact, it's high time we started thinking about the nation's health as a national resource, something we protect, nurture, defend and pass on to the next generation.
The Republican Party is inexorably tied to the idea that the dollar incentive fixes everything. It doesn't. Not with the new Medicare Drug Plan, not with Social Security, and not with preventive care in the face of an unprecedented epidemic of diabetes.
The GOP does the bidding of the almighty dollar, and the almighty dollar would rather amputate your leg than help you stay healthy in the first place.
For shame.
Comments
The thing that I find interesting is that the more that scientists discover genetic or biological bases for certain mental health disorders, amongst many other areas of health, it seems like these issues without a doubt fit into the conservative ideology.. to have the freedom from mental illness, to have freedom from diabetes, etc.
I've been wondering how we can build a network of people committed to a national healthcare system. I've started my small piece by creating eat4today a place to talk about food and eating and the state of the world. And, it seems healthcare.
Anyway I love this post.
Unfortunately, that failure has haunted all of us for over ten years, and because it is so closely identified with Hillary it is likely to continue to haunt us.
Nevertheless, it is an issue that profoundly affects *every* American. Even people with health insurance---an increasingly smaller percentage of us---are pissed at how cumbersome and bureaucratic and expensive our private health care system is.
The trick is to clearly articulate the problem and the solution in one easy and memorable phrase that voters will understand. My favorite is:
"Medicare for All."