"in all we do, we must remember that the best health care decisions are made not by government..."

[Warren DeMontague]

"...but by patients and their doctors."


You said it, buddy. That's what being pro-choice is all ABOUT.

[Warren DeMontague]

1. Guess no one else caught that.

:shrug:

[Hekate]

2. ...but by major corporations whose only concern is making a buck."

Of course he wants "government" out of health care. But doctors and patients don't really factor into his equation, either. He wants it totally in the hands of corporate gatekeepers who won't insure anyone who's had so much as a cold.

Oh, and by the way, does anyone else besides me go "WTF" at his health tax plan? Am I nuts or is he actually saying that the more we spend on health insurance for ourselves, the more he will tax us?

Hekate

[murielm99]

4. That's what he is saying. n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

6. Krugman did an excellent deconstruction on why it is a typical "shaft everyone" pile of crap.

But that wasn't my point in the thread. No one is more in favor of a SPHC system than me. My point was, he's saying government shouldn't be making health care decisions for people, as he fills HHS and the FDA with people who think the birth control pill should be illegal... and the supreme court with people who want to outlaw abortion.

[Hekate]

7. On which I completely agree. All his appointments are aimed at destroying our government...

...or rather destroying anything that we would think is a positive function of government.

Hekate

[Captain Hilts]

3. Insurance cos. aren't any better. They still get to choose who to insure. nt

[Warren DeMontague]

5. I guess I need to spell it out. If he's against government making health care decisions

he should stop trying to put it in 150 million American Womens' uterii and birth control pill dispensers.

[OneBlueSky]

8. unfortunately, today those decisions are made by mega-corporations . . .

commonly known as HMOs . . . to their own financial benefit, to be sure . . .

[wiggs]

9. ..unless you're Terry Schiavo nt

[RB TexLa]

10. Actually by patients, doctors don't make the decisions n/t

[tiptoe]

11. and sometimes doctors fix their mistakes...by killing them (instead of trying to heal them). nt

[Warren DeMontague]

12. I don't get your post, sorry.

:shrug:

[tiptoe]

13. Not all doctors have purely medical interests of patients in mind in their practices. (eek!)

For example, different medical care systems might confine their doctors' practices, i.e. different "cookbooks" of permissible/prioritized practices for doctors of different systems (e.g. based on costs and statistics, procedures D,K,M might be "cost-effective" and permitted, while procedures F,P and Z might be disallowed/"de-prioritized").

Example: Friend of mine received the same diagnosis from four doctors, all of the same HMO. That diagnosis -- based on results from the same set of diagnostic procedures permitted/advised by their system -- called for the removal of an eye.

On advice of a layman friend, the patient explored outside the Plan to see another specialist. He was informed about a diagnostic procedure not utilized by the patient's HMO doctors. The diagnostic finding by the "outside" fifth specialist? The eye would not have to be removed (and a different medical issue was identified).

Do I *know* that none of the four doctors -- under the confines of a common medical system -- were aware of the alternative diagnostic procedure that eventually saved their one-time patient's eye? No, but I'd tend not to believe all, as informed professionals, were unaware. Did ANY of the four doctors volunteer advice to clue the patient to explore outside his HMO? No (...and why would they? After all, doctors practicing from the same "team cookbook" likely will find ready reinforcement of opinion by colleagues' common diagnostic finding).

So, though my post was playing on an old joke -- "Doctors don't fix their mistakes; they kill them." -- the point was that non-medical interests (business costs, risk management, performance- ratings) can intervene between a doctor making "the best health care decisions" with the patient...that are solely in the interest of the patient.

Pro-choice, yes, but that alone seems insufficient for addressing factors possibly intervening between doctor and patient and interfering with "the best health care decisions" for that patient.

Might government have some role to play in assisting parties seeking medical attention for arriving at "best health care decisions" purely from a patient's perspective? Maybe...in this era of corporate, business-bottom-line medicine.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. Yes. I agree. I think some folks aren't getting my point in posting this thread.

My fault, I'm sure, for not being clearer.

I agree completely- I think HMOs, "managed care" and the insurance industry have royally screwed up health care delivery and decision making in this country. Obviously, some doctors are caught up in that, too.

My point wasn't that, yes, "government should stay out of it"- I actually think what we should have is a SPHC system, not where government makes medical decisions, but whereby the pool of the insured becomes the whole population, and government takes the place of private insurance. Like Medicare, (or the health insurance congress has) but for everyone. Seems to me that's a no-brainer, and in theory we could reduce the 20% or so of health care costs the Insurance industry takes to something like 3% for overhead.

Yes, yes, yes. But that wasn't the point I was making in this thread. The point was only that it's pretty damn ironic for George Bush to be going on about "keeping government out of health care decision making". Tell that to a woman with a pregnancy gone horribly wrong who needs a late term abortion. Tell that to the terminally ill patient who wants to choose a dignified, pain-free exit. Tell that to pain patients whose doctors are too terrified of the DEA to prescribe adequate palliative care. Tell that to medical marijuana patients. Tell that to every American who is outraged at the religious right's crusade to put women who have abortions in jail and make the birth control pill a controlled substance.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

Get it?