Interesting article......
This Q&A may be of interest.
I've seen T.R. Reid's PBS program, "Sick Around the World," and would recommend it to others. It is viewable, in chapters, online.
His book, "The Healing of America," has been released and is reviewed in this NYT's article. Excerpts:
" . . . this book’s clarity, comprehensiveness and readability are exceptional,
and its bottom line is a little different from most. Instead of
rationalization and hand-wringing, Mr. Reid offers an array of possible
solutions for our crisis. . . .
. . . Mr. Reid’s underlying message of hope does not preclude an intensely
satisfying quotient of moral outrage at the worst casualties of our
system as it stands.
One is the uninsured working person, too rich for Medicaid, too poor for a standard insurance policy, at first too proud to acknowledge disability, and then too sick for the process that a formal declaration of disability requires. These are the people who die of treatable illness in our country.
And then there is the insured working person who discovers, with surprise, that health insurance is a for-profit industry, that the industry term for payment is “medical loss” and that the process of extracting payment for a dire health condition can turn into a bizarre game of “catch me if you can.”
A person’s last days can be spent in any number of ways. But on the phone pleading with an insurer, that’s only in America.Many Americans are saying that universal coverage is too expensive. But you say it’s essential for controlling medical costs. Why?
If everybody’s in the system, you have the political will to make tough decisions about cost control. If you say, “We will cover the ,000 drug for breast cancer, but not the ,000 drug,” that means some women may die sooner than they might have. But if the system covers everybody, you know the money saved is going to be used to help a sick child or a mother with a difficult pregnancy. That makes it easier for society to accept those tough decisions.
In the U.S., when Aetna or WellPoint declines to pay for a drug or a procedure, the money saved goes to enhance the insurer’s profit, not to pay for another person’s treatment. So people are less willing to tolerate cost controls. All over the world, health ministers told me that the first step is universal coverage — and that generates the political will to impose controls.
Critics argue that if we institute cost controls, it will stifle innovation in both drug discovery and the development of new technologies.
That’s completely false. Overseas, cost controls drive innovation. In Denver, I had an M.R.I. that cost ,434 dollars. The exact same procedure in Japan today costs about 5. That’s because the government kept reducing the price it would pay for M.R.I.’s. Japanese researchers had to devise ways to get the same scan for less money, and they did, developing much cheaper machines.
As for drugs, it’s also false. Lots of drugs that make TV news in America come originally from labs in the U.K., Switzerland or Japan. "