This is a perfect example involving health care incentives established by law. Unintended; not necassarily unforeseen..
Still, it feels to me like the article is leaving a big, pink elephant of a solution unnamed. Maybe that is just selection bias on my part.
Ignore the pink elephant that may or may not be there. Even then the article ends on a very unsatisfactory note, in my mind. Read the article (or don't) and then (if you did) let me know if you found the ending as unsatisfying as I did.
Keep in mind I normally avoid reading these things--and all things "political" (which includes healthcare, at this point). I don't see a pink elephant (or maybe I do but don't see it as such?).
ReplyDeleteThe ending felt like the author was trying to end on a good note ("people will do what's right because they want to"). I don't know if it was satisfactory or not..I tend to find most discussions about healthcare unsatisfactory!
Well, without lecturing too much, health care will affect you in 2 very major ways - your health care and your wallet in the form of taxes or lost jobs.
ReplyDeleteThere, I did my moral obligation.
As to the ending ... I think the author is a little too pollyannish at the end. Sure, most doctors would forego more pay to practice medicine the "right way." Never mind the fact that its apparently not happening. Yes, he mentions that medical school grind and debt can impact the new doctors' profit motive. But certainly, after 10 years, they've paid that off. Where are all these newly debt-free doctors making $100,000/yr. who are practicing medicine "the right way?" I don't know that I see them.
The other problem is that as we've all been told, health care costs are sky rocketing. But this guy points out a problem without any type of solution. That's not just not hard, its not very creative. "Look, I've identified a problem everyone else sees." And his soluation is some kind of nebulus "trust?"
Pink Elephant - He talks about the down side to incentives, how they can corrupt, and how the market works around them, but never really hits at what he's aiming at: Get rid of the incentives. That seems to be the real point of the piece. "Let's go back to a time of easier med school education and less debt and restrictions and rules."
Plus, I would say that you're a liar. You read The Fattening of America. Which was indirectly health care related and obesity is a huge element in the health care debate.
ReplyDeleteThst was for work!
ReplyDelete