The U of U Shines a Light on Health Care
6 Comments Published September 3rd, 2008 in National and International Issues.Surprise! – University of Utah alumni magazine is first rate!!
I expect something like an “alumni magazine” to be the sort of thing that you only read if it’s the last one left in the magazine rack at the dentist’s office. I was actually shocked to discover that the fall issue of Continuum, the Universisty of Utah alumni magazine, had a first rate series of articles about one of the most serious problems we have in the U.S. — our broken health care system.
I’ve touched on this before in this space. In We’re Number 1!!, I asked for opinions about why the U.S. drags in almost last among developed countries in so many “quality of life” statistics, such as the availability of health care. Frequent contributor “RP” suggested that the poor showing in health care here might have something to do with …
- litigating malpractice
- the U.S. pays R&D costs for drugs
- health industry lobbying costs
I was hoping for more fundamental ideas in my earlier blog so I didn’t say very much about it. But RP should get his hands on the fall issue of Continuum. A panel of six health care experts at the University of Utah don’t mention any of these things. I really do hope a few people find the article and read it so I won’t spoil the ending here (much…), but basically, they say that the system of providing health care in the U.S. is simply broken. Here’s the box quote from the article:
“The whole system needs to be rearranged, and it may take a crisis to get that to happen because people are not willing to give up what they have right now, both on the provider and the access side.”
I tried to make the same point, but I went after it indirectly, “Americans still think that we’re the priviledged ‘leader of the free world’ somehow. Part of the goal of the blog was to make the point that we have another ‘think’ coming about that.”
In other words, it seems to me that if there was a more complete understanding of how bad things actually are in America relative to the other countries, people would start demanding changes big time. In my blog McCain Remembers Who He Is, I moan and groan about “big lie” politics. This is a great example. One of the biggest lies is when every politician stands up and proclaims, “America is the greatest country in the world!” (And my guy does it too.) There is a deep-seated truth there, but that feel-good lie is most often used to cover up the many, many things that cry out for revolutionary, gut-wrenching, “tear-it-down-and-start-over” change that we so desperately need. A need that is proven by how far we have fallen behind the rest of the world!
Another article in the same issue actually opened my eyes to a new failing of our health care system that I didn’t know about before. In “Healing a Heart,” a U of U alumni tells how she was only able to find the availability of heart surgery – at a cost that she could afford – by traveling to India. I’m a little embarrased to admit that I was surprised to find that Indian heart specialists and surgeons are every bit as good as the ones we have here.
Why did that come as a surprise to me? I have no excuse. I had fallen for at least part of the same “big lie”.
I shall find a copy.
I have not seen the magazine in some time — I suspect my membership in the Alumni Assoc has expired
I read the article and found it interesting.
It really did not address the issue of why premiums for health care are skyrocketing.
I got that we could get more bang for the buck if the health care system, including insurance companies, paid more attention to primary care and perhaps less to rescue care at the beginning and end of life.
I have not looked at either Obama’s or McCain’s insurance plans in detail so I don’t know whether either one would fundamentally change our health care system or whether they are just trying to make care under our current system more affordable and accessible.
It has long been a pet peeve of mine that the first knee-jerk reaction from Washington to any problem is that the US has the best ????? system in the world – whether it is food inspection, drug approval or something else.
I had a cardiac procedure done at Dixie Regional Medical Center last summer and one of the cardiologists I dealt with was an Indian. I was impressed and pleased with him.
You’re right. (They can’t come right out and say it. After all, they still have endowments to think of.) But it was pretty straightforward on how wrong things are.
So … That puts us back at square 1. Why are things the way they are?
I believe that Americans — as a culture — are sort of like alchoholics who refuse to admit that they have a problem. And Step Number One is “admitting that one cannot control one’s addiction or compulsion”.
I agree with you — denial is the first reaction and persists.
In addition to health care we could add other front-page problems like energy and the financial system where there was a denial of a problem until there was a complete melt down.
Unfortunately there is no leadership amongst our Lords and Masters in Washington willing to deal with problems. Republicans and Democrats. White House and Capitol Hill
I was thinking of heaping more on the pile with a little note from NewsWeek … Oh heck … I’ll do it anyway …
INSIDE BUSINESS
Is America Losing At Globalization?
“… from China’s gleaming maglev trains to India’s superior wireless-phone networks, there are also signs that the United States is losing ground in the daily global competition for economic supremacy.”
“Americans returning from jaunts abroad can’t help but notice that the distinguishing features of modern capitalism, many of them developed in the United States, are being put to greater effect overseas. I’ve had better cell-phone service in Cambodia than in Connecticut. South Korea, and many other countries, has a higher rate of broadband penetration than the United States. An Ernst & Young report found that about 24 percent of America’s major roads are in “poor to mediocre condition,” while China builds ever-faster trains. In 2000, U.S. exchanges accounted for about half the value of global stock markets; at the beginning of this year, they accounted for just 33 percent. When the sale of Anheuser-Busch to InBev, the Brazilian-Belgian giant, is completed, each of America’s Big Three beermakers will be part of a foreign conglomerate.”
——————
NOW … the question becomes … is there a still deeper cause that we can identify? That is, something, anything, that could be changed to put us back on the right road.
Anyone? …. Anyone … ??
another view of health care
still not many solutions
http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700256976,00.html