Re: [asa] health care (corrected)

I think a healthy share of the culpability for our present health care
mess is ourselves -- that is our "national" selves who corporately made
choices with our $$ over the last generations that no expense is to be
spared when it comes to medical treatment. So we have the explosion of
a medical technology industry that doesn't work for cheap. We demand
certainty that can only be provided by MRI machines etc. and are not
about to be satisfied with even a seasoned doctor's expert opinion on a
matter such our grandparents who learned, for example, to trust an
experienced midwife to handle a birthing situation. These less
credentialed "house" doctors of yesteryear may have had an x% success
rate, but we demand an x + 10% success rate (or something like that) and
that extra "10%" (or whatever that improvement would be) has cost us
dearly. Now we don't even have the option for the more economical, less
tech-dependent care at all. We have a one-size fits all system that
ends up being a one-size for the rich system, and the "poor"
(increasingly many of us) just do without. (I do actually have health
insurance at the moment, but I still identify politically more with
those who don't.)

--Merv

John Burgeson (ASA member) wrote:
> On 9/26/09, Alexanian, Moorad <alexanian@uncw.edu> wrote:
>
>> I had no health care until I got my first job after my Ph.D., which was my
>> choice. I suppose, if I had died before that time, I would have become one
>> of the 45,000.
>>
>
> What if you had been hit by a car whose driver was uninsured and had,
> as a result, $100,000 of medical bills? I suppose you would have
> declared bankruptcy and gone on with your life. But without insurance,
> I doubt if you would have gotten adaquate treatment, outside or the
> E.R. or therapy thereafter as few health providers can afford to give
> their services for free (they must eat, too).
>
> So, to some extent, I see you as freeloading during those days. I
> hasten to add that I did the same thing; I was not particularly aware
> of the issues in those days.
>
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Received on Sat Sep 26 17:48:20 2009