I like this. Why, because it is proactive and logical. The system we are running now by expanding health care coverage is a bit like helping hunger by giving everyone a twinkie. Unless we think about what the real costs are we can't find an effecient solution to achieving our goal of improving the health of the american people, and therefore, in many ways not extending care (I mean checkups nonewithstanding) but reducing it.
The Link: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1902708-4,00.html
The Author:
Karen Tumulty Friday, Jun. 05, 2009The Excerpt:
"5. How will we bring down costs?
The problem with American health care, those who have studied the system will tell you, is not that we get too little care but that we use too much. By some estimates, as much as 30 cents of every health-care dollar is spent on medical treatment that is unnecessary, ineffective, duplicative or even harmful. Changing all that is going to require revamping health care from top to bottom, starting with the way health-care providers are reimbursed. While the current system pays them for the amount of care they provide, real reform would put more emphasis on the quality of that care and the outcomes it achieves.
If there is an ideal out there, Baucus says, it can be seen in the kind of medicine already being practiced by Kaiser Permanente, the Mayo Clinic, Intermountain Healthcare and Geisinger Health System, which manage to hold down costs and get better results. Their operations have fostered closer teamwork among care providers. Also important will be electronic record-keeping that saves time and avoids errors, and comparative-effectiveness research that gives doctors and patients a better sense of which treatments work best. And a reformed health-care system would put more emphasis on preventive care and managing such chronic conditions as asthma, heart disease and diabetes that now account for 75 cents out of every medical dollar spent."
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