Healthcare Reform
How can you reform a system that takes more money to operate than it can possibly afford? Costs are increasing disproportionately in all areas – hospital care, outpatient care, imaging, pharmacy services and administrative costs. Most businesses can afford to weather a short-term cost overrun in one segment of its operations, usually by raising price and/or laying off staff.
The US health system has withstood 10 years of serious price escalation and is approaching a breaking point. And no one has the courage to break the bad news to the public.
Even Mr. Obama, who has taken huge strides forward on this issue, cannot shown us a price tag for the cost just to maintain the current level of care. That figure will be a staggering number. And I don’t mean the cost of what the President is proposing, I mean what it will really take.
I am a physician who has practiced both in Canada and the US. I have experienced two different solutions to the same problem. The US throws money at the problem and Canada rations it care. Neither approach appears to work but somehow its citizens get by.
What should the US do about healthcare reform? I don’t know. Unless we get a lot clearer on what it will cost to really overhaul the system, I don’t know how anyone can make any meaningful headway on the problem.
