zzlangerhans

Healthcare 'Debate' Dominated by Shouting and Lobbies

Any other docs here? As an emergency room physician, I support health care reform because I know the current system sucks. Insurance is too expensive and many people can't afford it or simply choose not to buy it and take their chances. This is the case because doctors waste enormous resources to practice defensive medicine and for unnecessary tests and hospitalizations to please overentitled patients. This problem can be addressed in two ways. One is to simply pump money into the system to support expansion of the current wasteful system, which appears to be the gist of the current proposals. This is probably better than doing nothing, but still not very good and unsustainable in the long term.

A much better approach would be to enact tort reform and subject physicians to greater scrutiny regarding wasteful spending, and also create some accountability from individuals regarding the health care spending on their behalf. It appears that the current powers do not have the motivation or willpower to adopt the second approach and therefore will never achieve credibility for their efforts among physicians.