Some doctors and medical professionals are acknowledging that
consideration of cost must be part of our society’s rational steps to reform
health care.
More explicitly, some doctors and medical professionals are starting to talk about bringing cost, effectiveness and benefits into play, from a societal
perspective, in making decisions about health care and what should be covered
by health insurance.
Look, let’s call it as it is: if you’re Bill Gates, you can afford any
medical treatment you can ever want, regardless of cost or benefit
calculations.
If you’re not, it’s a different story—if you’re a poor, 102-year-old
guy with heart problems, leukemia and advanced renal disease, it makes sense
for you to get pain medication, but it really doesn’t make sense for your health
insurance to pay for triple bypass heart surgery.
Viz., the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association have announced that they
would begin to use cost data to assess treatment guidelines and performance
standards.
We have to start talking more candidly about effective health care that
we can afford—both costs and benefits—and about a health care system that can
be sustained by our society.
No comments:
Post a Comment