No matter how mad I get that nobody would listen to people who really understood (and medical school deans who have neve r worked in the real world do not count as experts).
We need fixes now that both sides can agree to. I have great ideas, but nobody will do a damn thing because even if I were important enough to be heard, the lobbyists would resist. Here are again (I posted it somewhere a couple of years ago) a couple of ideas that should be palatable to both sides - but consider the lobby pressure they would create by threatening the status quo...
1). Pharma reform - fact US citizens pay th highest price for meds in the world, even thogugh we develop most of them ourselves. Why? Because the HCR was written to allow them to do it - Big Pharma was the first group Obama went to get on board with his fiasco, and he unconscionably gave them the sky.
The same drug is cheaper in Mexico, Canada, and everywhere else. I am talking not about the new high level R&D drugs, I am talking about longtime , generic available standards like the inhalers, antibiotics, etc.
Problem: the US can’t regulate these companies because even if they could escape their paralyzing lobby group in Washington, the companies are international.
Solution - US forms a drug buying consortium of real experts this time who negotiate prices for massive bulk purchases on the international market and the. Make these drugs available at the cost of the great purchase price plus the added cost of the new branch of govt. US citizens would save trillions over the next decade.
Libs would love this because it expands foot, but I would also build in restrictions from the start so that this branch cannot grow beyond a specific size and scope. Drug companies would be forced to make deals because their would be competition for getting the US contract. We would essentially be both creating govt and at the same time bringing the free market capitalism back into play - but at the world level.
2). Eliminate the regulations requiring doctors and hospitals to use electronic medical record.
Fact - it is the single biggest healthcare cost on the buget at every office or hospital, yet it has never even been shown to improve care.
fact - the EMR was developed for hospitals to maximize “billing opportunities”. Fact - it slows productivity by 1/3 in facile providers and 1/2 in others.
Fact - the EMR companies like EPIC were able to name the moon for their product- and then they got it because the govt forced the medical community to get it by cutting reimbursements if it didn’t. It costs about 60 thousand dollars per provider to set up and then about 20 to 30 thousand dollars a year per provider to maintain and secure (it is much much more expensive per provider I. The hospitals).
Fact - it was a system that was designed to shar info she. HIPPA was calling to restrict info. Further it was very insecure given the sensitivity of it’s data, and there were incredible numbers of easy targets for hackers so that now the new burgeoning additional expense ad area of med liability is system security.
Fact - the hospital lobbies strongly supported the EMR push in Washington DC because they knew it would force all of the Doctor practices into their arms which included their practice itself, their purchasing, their accounting, their rental of buildings...all other additional profits that would be enjoyed by the hospitals.
Solution- eliminate the EMR which will again in this case re introduce capitalism by giving peopl alternative to the hospitals. If you don’t like it, don’t go there. But you will like it.
Fact