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Politics : A US National Health Care System?

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To: Brumar89 who wrote (7929)	7/31/2009 8:23:03 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (3) of 42652

How could anyone tell except the doctor in question? No one but the doctor in question can tell if a particular patient would or wouldn't benefit for a given procedure. It's up to the doctor to compare a particular patient with the protocols for the procedure. Doing the procedure would have to remain up to the doctor and patient. No one else can do that. But the doctor may be under the misapprehension that the procedure is of benefit to patients with a given set of markers. He does the procedure because he was taught it in med school, the procedure has become the standard protocol for the ailment, and all his fellows do it. Either no one has studied outcome data or the fact that the procedure isn't effective or cost effective hasn't yet seeped into the set of protocols that doctors follow. I am not suggesting that the government is the only player or the best player for studying outcomes. But if the government is interested and wants to spend the money to do the studies, publicize the results, and base its payments for government subsidized insurance like Medicare accordingly, that would produce a healthy cost savings. I can see why the proponents of this legislation would include it. I can't see anything threatening in it other than my general aversion to government meddling, in general, that is. Yet the legislaion does nothing on tort reform and with the clout of trial lawyers, we know it won't. There's no excuse for that not being in the plan. But it not being there doesn't run counter to the above effort, merely fails to weigh in in that particular way. Still, a government expression of the lack of utility of a particular procedure should give medical practitioners some cover in lawsuits even without tort reform. It could be seen as a back-door contributor to tort reform. Right now lawsuits are based on doctors failing to do something that is part of the accepted protocol. If the protocol changes because of what the government discovers about outcomes, then the doctor is in the clear.

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