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Politics : A US National Health Care System?
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To: Lane3 who wrote (7990)8/1/2009 12:20:55 PM
From: i-node  Read Replies (1) of 42652
 
>> What I'm proposing is that the taxpayers not pay for it.

A very slippery slope and a serious mistake.

To begin with, you have to keep in mind that certain treatments are to a large part, or even almost exclusively, paid for by the government (hip fractures in the aged, for example, as well as some cancers).

This is where everything gets screwed up. If you say you don't want the taxpayers to pay for it, implicitly you are saying that a government entity makes the decision as to what treatments are and are not available. And as government entities are prone to doing, they're going to try to quantify inherently qualitative data and there you go.

Aside from that, the bureaucracy is a disaster. Years ago, I knew a gynecologic oncologist who wanted to use high-dose Depo Provera to treat certain cancers. This is long before Medicare thought it was a good idea. At the time, it was a very expensive drug, and it became infeasible for him to use it simply because he couldn't get reimbursed for it. Had it been up to the government, it is likely the treatment of cancer with Depo Provera would NEVER have been considered. (I'm not making a statement about the efficacy of this treatment as I don't know anything about it).

I don't think you want this kind of situation. I certainly don't. There are tons of problems with it. You simply have to give physicians these treatment options if you want the body of medical knowledge to continue to evolve.

If you limit treatments to those in the Medicare Provider's Manual I think you will have a devastating effect on medical progress world wide.
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