NYT Columnists Discuss Rationing
This is from the New York Times' The Conversation Blog:
Gail Collins: There have to be limits on what doctors can prescribe. The president pretends the only limit will be on useless tests and drugs that have an equally good, cheaper alternative. But useless and equally good are in the eye of the beholder.
David Brooks: As for your second point, that there should be limits on what doctors can prescribe, I say: "Amen to that."
Health care is a scarce and valuable resource. As such it must be rationed in order to avoid shortages or escalating costs. The question is: who should decide?
If patients give all their health care dollars to third party insurers in return for first-dollar benefits, the insurance company will make rationing decisions. If patients give their tax dollars to the government in return for national health insurance, it will be government making rationing decisions. If patient want a say in how their health care dollars are allocated, they will have to take responsibility through consumer driven health care.
New York Times columnists ( except for Paul Krugman) seem to understand exactly what is going on.
Also Tom, this is the right and the left agreeing.
At least 34 million Americans suffer from chronic pain caused by conditions including arthritis, lower back problems, neuralgia, or migraine headaches. Some 15 million working Americans have pain on a chronic basis.
Having injured my back this summer, I have come to learn a lot about pain firsthand. Pain can be hard to define. It means different things to different people and your own perception of pain can change over time. For some people, acknowledging pain is a sign of weakness. What most people don’t realize is that pain is a medical problem — and that it can be treated.
How do you measure your pain? It is difficult. No lab tests or X-rays can convey to your doctor what you are feeling , it indicates findrxonline in his article about this topic.But even when pain is intense, many people struggle to find the words to describe it to the doctor. It is important to understand whether you suffer from acute or chronic pain.
Health care spending is not fixed. People have to choose between health care and other things. These people talk as if there is some global budget and that the amount of health care is fixed.
Personally, I think that if Mr. Brooks feels so strongly about limiting what doctors can prescribe that he should limit his own spending to only the kinds of medical technologies available in the 1930s. Meanwhile, the rest of us can be left alone to decide how much of our money we want to spend on 2009 medicine versus, say, green energy, community activism, battery powered cars, expensive coffee, or organic food.