Maybe the noise is getting to me.

The debate, such as it is, over how to reform health care, or health insurance, or whatever the hell we’re trying to do, or not do, often seems a muddle to me. I found this refreshing take – from someone who claims to have actually perused the document – on the Senate bill in my copy of The New Yorker, 14 December 2009.

You may enjoy it online here.

Worth reading.

  • OLD TIMER

    Interesting analogy. If the same principle could be applied to health care, we could expect better care at more reasonable cost. There is an enormous difference between the attitude of the average farmer and any doctor. The ego it takes to become a doctor makes it very difficult to take advice, while farmers don’t have that problem. I hope the congress people all get to hear this writer’s argument. Devising a program that would do for medical care what was done for agriculture would be an amazing accomplishment. There will be a lot more resistance from the medical profession as doctors will likely see any government program to improve efficency as a threat to individual doctor’s earning potential. In some places, including Norwalk, there has already been some movement toward larger practices where groups of doctors share expenses to improve efficiency. So far, the savings have not been passed along to patients, but have resulted in better earnings for doctors. It will be a long time before patients see any savings.

  • Healthcare Improvement Advocate

    TG-thanks for pointing out this excellent article, especially since it’s an indictment of the Republican party standing in the way of governement helping the average citizen in agricutlture as well as heathcare reform. Dr. Atul Gawande’s research on healthcare costs comparing 2 practices in Texas was very enlightening also. The Democrats have plans for cutting costs in healthcare, Mr. Gawande points out several demonstration programs in the reform bill. The Republicans’ attempts to block the bill without offering any alternatives seems fairly self-destructive to all of us.

    • turfgrrl

      Healthcare Improvement Advocate: Not me who posted it, thank Chris Mc.

  • fed up

    You want to improve healthcare ?
    Eliminate all the frivolous lawsuits and the incentive to practice defensive medicine for fear of lawsuits.
    Cut the enrollments in law schools-TORT REFORM NOW.

    • turfgrrl

      fed up: Frivolous law suits are not the problem. Medical practitioners are paid by the procedure/percription, not the illness and not the cure. So if you want to see medical costs go down force treatment to be priced by the hour, posted in advance and let the consumer decide. Just like plastic surgery and lasik eye surgery is competitively priced, so should everything else be. The problem is having insurance companies sit in the middle of the medical transaction.

  • I want answers

    First of all.. FEDUP: 100% agree!

    For those that do have health, are you really unhappy with the services provided? I for one am not. What doesn’t cost money now? I don’t get how no one balks at paying outlandish taxes, when the US Gov’t gives away billions to a bunch of Wall st crooks, CROOKS! the way we do about health care costs. Who feels comfortable having the US Government run anything!? I mean, who can answer that with confidence? How’s Medicare doing? How’s Fannie & Freddie? How about the wars we are fighting? Can we really trust these bunch of schmucks to get anything right? Wake up people…..
    I WANT ANSWERS!

    Here’s something to ponder….. Nancy Pelosi vs. Sarah Palin. I ask you: What’s the difference?? ……… ……… …….. …….. RED LIPSTICK.

    • Secondhand Rose

      Well, see, that’s part of the problem! I’m not unhappy at all with the health care I currently have. I’m not paying a penny for it, and during this past year as I dealt with breast cancer, which included 4 surgical biopsies, 3 surgeries, chemo, a bone scan, 2 MRIs, several echocardiograms, 2 ultrasounds, a dozen mammograms, and 35 straight days of radiation, I have not seen one single, solitary bill from anybody – other than my prescription and office visit co-pays. And at only $15 a visit or per prescription, you are not going to hear me complaining one iota about it either.

      But according to what I’ve been reading and hearing, if the government health care plan goes through, after they get through monkeying around with my current health benefits, I will be far more worse off next year than I am right now. And to say I’m concerned is putting it lightly.

  • Healt Improbement Realist

    As for “governement helping the average citizen”– the “Great Society”was a 6 Trillion dollar government FAILURE.

  • Anon

    Rose and Mikey agree on something!

  • OLD TIMER

    The scariest sentence ever spoken is:
    “I’m from the federal government and I am here to help”

  • Charles the Hammer

    turf girl is absolutely correct”…The problem is having insurance companies sit in the middle of the medical transaction.” we can compound that factor by having the Federal government join the insurance companies in the middle of what should be a buyer/seller transaction. The misguided regulations already in place skew the price: anti-trust exemption that blocks interstate price competition among insurers; favorable laws for tort attorneys; medicare price floors and ceilings; and the notion that a third party other than the consumer should pay the tab. Returning to the agricultural analogy, such restraints on the market price results in truck loads of milk being dumped into the street.