I just finished reading “overtreated” a book by Shannon Brownlee. One point that she drives home very well is that even if we get universal coverage we may not get better health outcomes as more people with insurance will probably lead to more people being overtreated, and some of the overtreatments are not benign. For example spinal fusion surgery for lower back pain, even though their is no proof that surgery helps aleviate the pain.
Our health care system is sick and in need of a holistic approach not just a financial fix that enables everyone to receive unneeded surgery.
Exactly. Subsidies distort prices, which contain the best information about costs, risks, supply and demand. The better the information, the better individuals can make the best choices for themselves.
The problem with health care is that in many cases you are at the mercy of your doctor in that if your doctor tells you to get a test or have surgery you are probably going to do what your doctor tells you. If your doctor is looking out for his bottom line more than your health or maybe just has a specialty that makes him or her think everything can be cured with back surgery you are going to have needless surgery.
Right, in fact, doctors sort of have their own union, and can control the number of new certified candidates. So they are a lot like OPEC in that way.
It would be nice if we could have statistics for doctors the way we do for major league baseball players. Then people could choose, at least those who are able to make sense of calorie comparisons. Doctors will be like free agents–patients will be like general managers. Power to the people!
Of course, we will always need to have some sort of safety net for people who don’t make it out of junior high school–they can’t join the UAW anymore.
CR:
You should read overtreated she makes that point a couple of times that it is almost impossible to find out how often your doctor has been sued or any information as to how qualified they are.
Or what results they get with their patients.