Healthcare Signal Boost

[laura_md]

Last week, 2h2o was visiting Boston, and cute_fuzzy_evil and ethicsgradient hosted a lovely little party. Discussion turned to the Healthcare Reform bill, and I brought up this article by David Goldhill published in the September issue of The Atlantic. Folks requested I post this again, as a signal boost. One of the best summaries of the current healthcare situation, as well as

Comments

[schreibergasse]

Huh. Interesting article. I think he may well have the right idea, although I would have liked some more detailed analysis on how to implement it (especially on how to manage the transition to it, and how to deal with some of its potential problems). And in particular:

But we’d also probably see the rise of health-care agents-paid by, and responsible to, the consumer
The trouble is, health insurance companies are *also* paid by, and theoretically responsible to, the consumer. Both groups (in theory) have incentives to keep costs down. So I'm not convinced that such advocates would be more effective than health care companies. In any case, replacing hordes of bureaucrats with hordes of lawyers does not seem like an improvement.

A more minor quibble:
Do you really believe that the hospital - forced to face the victim of its poor-quality service, forced to collect the bill from the real customer - wouldn’t have figured out how to make its doctors wash their hands?
Yes. This is one of the reasons why large institutions employ accountants: so that someone ELSE presents the customer with the bill. For effective change, you would have to have all those involved in patient care present the patient (or his/her survivors) with the bill personally.