Healthcare costs a lot, in part, because it costs a lot to develop new effective technologies and products to keep us healthy. Funny how we are willing to drop some coin when it comes to our own health, isn’t it?
Article here, appeared in the paper the other day had the following to say about medical technology.
Hospitals and large physician groups engage in a technological arms race. They are prodded by manufacturers aggressively pushing their products, patients pleading for the latest treatments and prestigious doctors aligning themselves with institutions marketed as innovative.
“Hospital administrators are under enormous pressure to invest in new technology,” said Chris Van Gorder, president and CEO of Scripps Health, which operates five hospitals in Encinitas, La Jolla, Hillcrest and Chula Vista.
Also contributing to rising medical expenses is the urge by health providers to maximize use of whatever services are available to them — even when it is unnecessary.
Public investment in unproven and even counterproductive alternative energy sources like wind and solar power and ethanol: good. Private investment in unproven medical technologies that may only yield marginal benefits: bad.
In countries where governments closely control health systems, costs are held down partly by evaluating new devices and procedures for effectiveness before allowing them into the market. Panels of medical experts also set treatment guidelines.
The United States puts up “a lot of barriers that make it very hard to control costs,” said Callahan with The Hastings Center. “There is particular resistance within the medical industry.”
For an example, Callahan pointed to Avastin, a colorectal cancer treatment that costs $90,000 for a one-year course of treatment but only extends a patient's life by an average of 1½ months.
Without expressly stating it, this is precisely what rationing is and the slant of the article is perfectly fine with that.
If a technology, procedure or drug passes regulatory muster for safety, let it be brought to market so that the consumers can make the call on whether or not they want to shell out the bucks for it thus removing any decision-making from “panels of medical experts”.
The idea of self-preservation and an inherent human desire to maximize our quality of life coupled with a desire to have access to the latest medical technology no matter how expensive is lost on the author and by extension, proponents of government-managed healthcare.
Keep your politics off our bodies!
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5 comments:
The same article took to task the da Venci device (price $1.5 million) that helps surgeons during prostate surgery among other procedures. It doesn't prolong the patients life measurably. All it does is reduce the collateral damage of the surgery, reduce hospital stay time and speed patient recovery. Clearly a useless piece of technology.
B-Daddy, good catch. I was going to mention something about that but the post was running long.
Thanks for pointing this out.
Also pointed out is, it was the doctors that want to keep up with leading technology to be the best they can be brought pressure to bear in the purchase of the machines.
'Dawg, the logic in this article is so upside down, it was hard to read.
You know what's really neat?
When you adjust for "people die in accidents"-- by measuring life expectancy starting from in your sixties-- the US has the best life expectancy on earth.....
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