Health Economic Perfect Storm-The Root Cause

[hbutler at pol.net]

  ...there is no solution other than free choice.  If we force people into
one system of care, they will find private solutions which public care
fails to provide.

   See this essay:

 Deseret News Archives,
Tuesday, July 31, 2001
Corporate-speak draining language

By Jack Anderson and Douglas Cohn with correspondent-at-large Lee Cullum

WASHINGTON -- There is no better key to a culture than language. The
lilting poetry of everything uttered in Ireland, for instance, shows a
depth of spirit that punishing hardship never could obliterate. The
directness of New Yorkers places a high premium on honesty, and the
indirectness of the French on privacy. The elaborate courtesy of the
American South indicates a sense of form and consideration that sometimes
overrides the true intention underneath. Also, it's possible to make
extravagant offers in the South, because people can be counted on not to
accept. They, too, are governed by what Thomas Mann called "the discipline
and energy of good manners."
But something disturbing is happening in the way Americans talk about each
other. They seem determined to drain the language of its essential juices
and to rob people of importance. The most egregious example is in the
field of medicine. How did doctors come to be called "health-care
providers"? It's a shocking and insulting dismissal of years of training
and reservoirs of authority that patients need to confer upon their
physicians.
It all grew out of the managed-care movement and a deliberate effort to
undermine doctors in order to pay them less and impose upon them more.
Patients were denied the dignity of the medical practice they had known,
and doctors were hounded into other lines of work because that's what
their profession, once respected, had become -- a line of work.
The same thing is happening now to writers. When Time-Warner merged with
AOL, suddenly the scribes became not authors, journalists or playwrights,
but "content providers."
Universities have become so obsessed with paying their bills and pleasing
their benefactors that many of them now refer to their students as
"customers."
The oddest of all is the designation of prostitutes as "sex workers." This
vocabulary flows from the wish of feminists to treat all women with
courtesy and to point out that many sell their bodies out of sheer
desperation to support children and keep themselves alive. It's a worthy
sentiment, but should language really try to change the degradation of
such circumstances? What is happening in all these cases (except, of
course, the last) is an ascendancy of corporate/entrepreneurial culture
that is rendering everything else secondary and subject to revision.
Especially under attack are the professions. Lawyers are among the few to
be spared, but they may well be next. Too many are surrendering too
quickly, not understanding that their expertise, their creativity, their
insight, clear and undiluted, are critical to the success of the whole --
business included.
United Feature Syndicate




2000 Deseret News Publishing Co.


>
> In a message dated 4/5/2007 5:47:48 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
> PatrickOffner at Centura.Org writes:
>
> While I  agree with you almost 100%--don't you believe that insurance
> costs  are also  out of control--to the point that a lot of people just
> cannot afford  them.  Your "fix" is just the tip of the iceberg--we also
> need insurance  reform as  well as tort reform--it is all intertwined.
>
>
>
> Dr. Offner.   You are so very right.   BOTH insurance  costs, hospital
> charges, and HMO overhead are ridiculously overpriced and  HIGH.  If
> this were a  sentinel event, these excessive charges and profits  for
> the non-physician sector  would be the ROOT CAUSE.     Governmental
> health programs such as those  supported by TriCare and FEMA are  even
> worse, with every opportunity for  overcharging, too much overhead and
> fraud.    If one is impressed with the responses  of FEMA  following
> Katrina, then that person will be very happy and satisfied  with the
> oncoming National Health Program proposed by many of the candidates  for
>  President in 2008.     Yes, Pat Offner,  your  obsrvations are right on
>  and you are so very correct.
>
> Kenneth L. Mattox, MD
>
>
>
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