I gotta blog this shit

Thursday December 15, 2005 - 11:07PM EDT

I'm watching the last peter jennings report on health care costs. They get to the part related to whole foods and what they call consumer driven health care. The whole foods owner is advocating consumers controlling their health care costs. Holy freaking shit, I can't believe this clown-ass is so cloud headed. It didn't say whether he thought this was a short term solution or long term so I can't be too hard on him, he is just trying to save his company money so he can continue to provide healthcare. However the notion that one should try and be conscious of cost when it comes to dealing with your health and possibly your life is not exactly a good thing. There has to be another way before even bringing that conversation up. I can't even believe that cost is even ever considered in healthcare decisions. Ok there is a larger system of economics to consider but you have to come up with something else when it comes to healthcare.

The underlying tone I am getting from this report is that high healthcare costs equals more lives saved. That is the bottom line. Costs are higher because people are dying less and more things are being done to maintain health. There was a presentation of a Dartmouth report that seemed to say something to the contrary though. The study found worse health in areas that spent more on healthcare. Without knowing the exact details of the study drawing a conclusion from that statement alone is very dangerous.

The report did end with a representative for the Dartmouth study saying something good. To paraphrase, he said that he was confident that high quality healthcare could be provided to all americans but that the question was whether anyone has the will to figure out how to do it. I love that statement. That is the question. None of our elected leaders have stepped up yet so who will? It could come from anywhere. A pharmacuetical company, the government, a healthcare company, who knows. Who will come up with the plan and find a way to transition the current system to it?