View Single Post
  #9  
Old 12-12-2009, 08:39 PM
Harrison's Avatar
Harrison Harrison is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 7,010
Exclamation Our small poll -- reflective of American Polls

LBP, you raise some really outstanding points, born from your painful experiences. And you argue very convincingly in your eight arguments. Jack also raises some good points in terms of the beast that is being “rammed” through the system – will it serve our interests? Will it address your concerns? Pay for new enabling medical solutions like ADR?

I don’t see how. Look at Medicare’s growing costs and ever-shrinking reimbursements. If that’s any indication (by symbol or as a benchmark for a future system) then we are addressing the wrong list of problems. I fear we already have a grossly bureaucratic health care system. Perhaps its reflective of our bloated, overloaded, unaccountable political system, which is why we need to start from scratch. That means NOT adding band aids on top of band aids…more layers of new committees…new policies on top of old ones, etc.

You may recall some of the chats we had about this in the past. I can’t seem to find the meaty topics, but Liz mentioned this wonderful PBS documentary – have you seen this: Sick Around the World - PBS documentary? The other countries figured out how to make things work – by doing careful analysis of systems around the world. It would seem the more successful ones started by comprehensive analysis and built completely NEW systems. I believe we are destined for failure unless we do that same.

OK, a bit of a rant….

Jack, I don’t fully agree with your points about lifestyle being such a major cost factor or “burden.” (BTW: I am in good health: not overweight and don’t smoke.) Sure, life choices are a big factor; but I think it is a bit over-emphasized and to some degree inaccurate. For example, it is argued that 1/3 of this country has one or more “chronic” diseases, which may not relate to smoking or weight. For example, think of the number of diabetic, asthmatic or “auto-immune” patients there are in this country – and all the doctors’ visits and meds prescribed to these patients.

Closer to “our” domain, think about the costs (and pains) with these grim patients' statistics (annual):
  • 80,000+ infected prosthetics requiring revision surgery;
  • 100,000+ deaths from nosocomial infections; of which 20,000 may be MRSA;
  • 500,000 deaths stemming from biofilm-related infections;
  • 1.9 million + hospital acquired infections!
These numbers were drawn from the CDC, NIH and CRID. But I had to really hunt to find and authenticate them for currency and accuracy. My point is that these numbers are just the tip of the iceberg and reflect a whole, different universe of chronic issues that are both under-reported and expensive in both human and economic terms.

So, back to the problem: what is the problem with healthcare?! Or list of problems? The person that determines & prioritizes the list is the leader of healthcare in America. And Obama, the healthcare president, has deferred this “list” to the House and Senate, knowing that other countries already solved this massive problem. Ironically, just this week, he received a peace prize in a country that has (forgive the expression) kick-*** healthcare.

Perhaps we are now living metaphorically in the book “Lord of the Flies.” I know that’s blunt, but if we don’t get our act together and focus on our budget issues – we’ll see trouble like we’ve not seen in generations. I’ll leave with one of my favorite quotes (stolen from Edison and morphed by Steve case):

"Vision without (the ability of) execution is a hallucination."
__________________
"Harrison" - info (at) adrsupport.org
Fell on my ***winter 2003, Canceled fusion April 6 2004
Reborn June 25th, 2004, L5-S1 ADR Charite in Boston
Founder & moderator of ADRSupport - 2004
Founder Arthroplasty Patient Foundation a 501(c)(3) - 2006
Creator & producer, Why Am I Still Sick? - 2012
Donate www.arthropatient.org/about/donate
Reply With Quote