Free healthcare

Jul 25, 2007 22:36

A lot of people have been discussing Michael Moore recently. I actually support universal healthcare. I have too many friends without any kind of health insurance. People in entry level jobs (especially retail) don't get any health insurance. Even without Michael Moore, no one is debating that we do need to be able to see a doctor when we fall sick ( Read more... )

Leave a comment

hyperblaster July 26 2007, 22:51:07 UTC
Sometimes expensive treatments really are redundant. Doctors usually have a lot of discretion when it comes to prescribing. Pharmaceutical companies typically try to induce doctors to prescribe the most expensive new drugs. While having newer drugs is a good thing, using them when much older, cheaper alternatives exist is not. Vioxx costs over $400 for a month's supply. Advil or Motrin costs less than $10. They are exact the same class of drugs (COX-2 inhibitor), but Vioxx costs over 40 times more. For the same dose of drug, Vioxx is marginally more effective than the generics. Even ignoring the fact that Vioxx turned out to be unsafe, prescribing Vioxx was not justified in most cases. Insurance companies noticed this a long time ago, and started denying expensive treatments when generics work just as well. Of course, being profit-minded companies, they eventually went overboard and started denying as much as they could.

I guess I can't predict what will happen if the government paid for all the drugs and procedures. Possibly every drug that the FDA approves could be be prescribed for the same cost to every patient. I doubt it'll turn out to be as restrictive as the U.S. military medical system, but it'll definitely have some restrictions. At least, people would be able to complain to their congressman if they were being denied adequate medical care. Now you can't complain to anyone.

Reply

izuko July 27 2007, 00:32:27 UTC
In all this, the key item is missing - the patient deciding what he or she will accept as far as the cost/benefit ratio. Both from the doctor, and from the insurance company.

Reply


Leave a comment

Up