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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: skinowski who wrote (18431)	7/22/2010 12:15:28 PM
From: Lane3	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42652

It would be interesting to understand what is it that causes neurotic and compulsive behavior.... but it ain't your family doc. I wasn't suggesting that doctors are causing disease. What I'm suggesting is that they "manage" them rather than try to prevent or cure them. A classic example of this is type 2 diabetes. Best I can tell, blood glucose is mostly ignored until the disease progresses to the threshold of where an official diagnosis of diabetes can be made, at which time the patient is already in trouble. Watchful waiting of a perverse sort, seems to me. Once the diagnosis is made, the patient is sent to a nutritionist, who will recommend a low fat diet, trained in monitoring blood sugar to a level that avoids crisis, and given drugs. On that regimen, particularly when the drug is insulin, which fosters fat storage, the disease will inevitably progress. That's management as opposed to prevention or "cure." Maybe you die a miserable death a few years later than you would have. I don't see that as particularly successful. I don't attribute all that to the doctors. I suspect that much of it is driven by what insurance will pay for. Doctors may not delve into things that insurance won't cover. If you don't have blood work, for example, that is outside the "normal" range provided by the laboratory, IOW, the range that occurs in the sick population that gets blood tests, then your disease is subclinical, which means not covered. But the doctors are, at least, party to it.

To: skinowski who wrote (18431)	7/22/2010 1:56:43 PM
From: dybdahl	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

This happens even in socialized systems, because the doctors simply use the treatments developed by companies that are paid for treatments, or developed in other systems that are not socialized. If a person gets depressed, what should you do? The solutions include: 1) Prescribe a drug in order to stabilize the brain thoughts. Easy and well documented solution for the doc, safe for the doc, and provides a diagnose to the patient, and a constant cash flow to the pharmaceutical industry. 2) Take the person into a treatment facility. Provides payment to the treatment facility, a diagnose to the patient, and maybe the patient will come back later. May be followed up by drugs, providing a cash flow to the pharmaceutical industry. 3) Tell the person that he is not depressed, and to go home. No diagnose is given, and maybe the doctor isn't paid for that visit, but it is often the right thing to do. The human brain is extremely good at fixing things when others say: There is nothing wrong with you. 4) Visit the person at home, investigate that person's normal day, find out why this person is depressed. Fix the cause. Almost nobody does that, because it is "magic", "undocumented", "not reproducable", "irregular turnover" and "expensive". But it is often a brilliant and cheap solution.