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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – What happened to tort reform? What happened to prevention and to the most important part of the system – the doctor patient relationship?
On September 17, 2009 President Obama told students at the University of Maryland: “Some of the people who are most enthusiastic about health care reform are the very medical professionals who have first-hand knowledge about how badly the system needs to change.’’
I could not agree more. Those of us who practice medicine and many who have been taking care of patients for decades know the present system cannot continue the way it is while providing good care for everyone. We want to see the system change, but don’t see how it is going to change for the better under the present discourse.
The system is broken. That is old news we’ve been hearing for years. In the trenches we see every day how patients get shoddy care and how insurance companies, malpractice lawyers and drug companies determine how we, the practitioners, are supposed to deliver the care. We never talk about what good care represents and how to improve its flagging quality. We read in the media how doctors, insurance companies and drug companies are full of crooks who take advantage of patients who are victims of fear and intimidation.
The problems of this system cannot be fixed by endless politics and economic arguments revolving solely around the business of medicine.
I became a physician because I wanted to take care of people. I wanted to keep people healthy and teach them to take responsibility for staying healthy. Twenty five years ago, the system I started working in made it possible for me to practice medicine that way, but soaring malpractice costs and ridiculous health insurance premiums, deceptive marketing practices by drug companies and academic medicine’s sellout to special interests made it almost impossible to focus on truly caring for the patient.
While most doctors were busy practicing medicine and helping patients, strangers who cared only about making money got between us. Lawyers, drug reps, insurance clerks and equipment salesmen crowded into the examining room where, previously, the privacy of the doctor and patient reigned supreme. Too many people who have no business being there interfered and destroyed a system that was based on the relationship between the doctor and the patient.
We have no prospect of improving the system with the present polemic.
The only bill on the table is the one presented by Sen. Max Baucus. Universal coverage is gone, we are talking about government sponsorship of not-for-profit clinics for people who cannot get care. We are talking about providing coverage to all and punishing us if we do not take it. Does that make sense or do you think it’s as crazy as I do? We are now making deals with the drug companies and the insurance companies (no surprise that insurance companies share prices are rising again) and medical equipment firms to help pay for the medical care.
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