I suspect that there will be another try to try to overhaul our health system before the next election, if only because of political pressure. Whether or not, we Americans could help ourselves a great deal by making some hard decisions. Might even help/inform congress!
Takes a lot of money to maintain even a moderately healthy country and our present attitudes toward life, living with the goal of putting off death as long as possible regardless of emotional and economic cost, without requiring much personal responsibility is expensive! And things are getting worse! Particularly when many costs that are the results of “medical issues”, but given other names. Additionally our research seems to keep producing very expensive “cures” and/or moderators for relatively small groups of patients at extraordinarily high prices that the rest of us end up paying.
In times past, people had to be more responsible simply because there was no alternative. It simply was understood that when one began be a burden to family or clan, one was responsible to “walk off into the sunset”. Over the past centuries healthcare science has developed new technologies, pharmaceuticals that enable people to live as long as possible without having to show responsibility. Television is loaded with ads targeted at Type 2 diabetics who are overweight, pretty obviously don’t watch their diet, but don’t need to worry because they can take “X” medication to postpone Type 2 effects. And those medications are largely paid for by the rest of us! Our prowess in prolonging life has given us something to deal with our ancestors did not have to cope with—those that now survive to adulthood that would not have lasted beyond early childhood a hundred years ago.
To me, the major problem with reducing medical costs is that the very concept goes counter to what Americans want. We don’t want to have (any) people die from lack of shelter, food, or medical services. Additionally we have a terrible fear of death (for whatever reason), and tend to place a great over valuation on “the value of life”, and as assume perfection (rather than probability and the pure chance that something may go awry) when assessing medical treatment, much to the pleasure of insurance firms and tort attorneys.
Seems to me that our government should explain to we Americans why we pay (per capita) almost twice as much for the same medical care as do most other developed countries. Are we greater hypochondriacs? There has to be some valid reason for the disparity. Perhaps a part of the problem is that the medical community recently was reported to waste almost $.5B each year.
Or perhaps we should consider ways of reducing the demand for medical services by recognizing that “people” are not all equal when it comes to allocating medical care. Decrees or legislation that would set limits on what we taxpayers and our country is responsible for when it comes to paying for indigents or other people who have become no longer able to “pull their own weight”. Maybe abortions of unwanted children should be encouraged, as well as voluntary self termination, perhaps age and expense limits beyond which government has no obligation, and so on!
The above text leads me to an expensive opinion: I do not believe we Americans are ready to be responsible and we have no viable alternative other than a national (public or private) healthcare program that will bring the American people to a par with the rest of the developed world both in terms of treatment and per capita cost.
Guff Worth is a resident of Lakeport
