[T]he committee concluded from a number of existing estimates and projections that federal spending on public health should at least be doubled from its current level of about $11.6 billion per year to approximately $24 billion as a starting point to meet the needs of public health departments.
Of the many ways to raise the additional funds, instituting a transaction tax on medical care services seems most promising, the committee concluded.
Entire News release. IOM’s report summary here.
Do you think that other countries have better health care systems than ours? A lot of people apparently do. And representatives of other countries make the same claim. So why isn’t this an opportunity for a mutually beneficial exchange? Let the other countries offer home grown care right in their own U.S. embassies and consulates and let Americans sign up for foreign health care (better care at half the price, so we are told). As Hanson explains:
Let countries like Sweden, France, etc. with approved national health care systems have bigger consulates, and open them up to paying customers for medical services. For example, you could sign up for Swedish Care, and when needed you’d go to their consulate to get medical care as if you were living in Sweden…
We don’t issue travel warnings suggesting people not travel to Sweden, for fear of getting sick there. So why not let folks travel to a Sweden nearby for their medical care?
Full Robin Hanson’s post at the Overcoming Bias blog.
“If we know what those best practices are, then I’m confident that doctors are going to want to engage in best practices. But I’m also confident patients are going to insist on it.… In some cases, people just don’t know what the best practices are.”
— President Barack Obama interview with Diane Sawyer, ABC News, June 2009.
But every patient does not, in fact, react in the same way to expert opinion. Nor does every doctor. More below the fold.
Continue reading Why One-Size-Fits-All-Medicine Doesn’t Work
In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that a Vermont woman who had her hand and forearm amputated because of gangrene after being injected with a brand name antinausea drug could sue the manufacturer for inadequate warning of the risks; she won $6.8 million from Wyeth.
In 2011, the court ruled that similar failure-to-warn suits could not be brought against makers of generic drugs. As a result, an Indiana woman who was also forced to have her hand amputated because of gangrene after being injected with a generic version of the same antinausea drug had her case dismissed.
Same drug. Same devastating health consequences. Opposite results.
Full editorial in the New York Times.
[T]here’s something that I haven’t seen discussed and yet seems striking to me: how similar the French and U.S. healthcare systems are.
On its face, this seems like a preposterous notion: whenever the two are mentioned together, it’s to say that they’re polar opposites.
France has been called the best healthcare system in the world by the World Health Organization. And if there’s something everyone in the US seems to agree on, it’s that US healthcare, well, horribly sucks, although they strongly disagree about why and what to do about it.
And yet, to me, the similarities are glaring.
Read full editorial in the Atlantic.
Remember Atul Gawande’s prediction that medicine will become like engineering. Here is the opposite prediction:
Soon a person’s precise genetic data will be augmented by an extraordinary wealth of other digital data (provided by, say, the continuous monitoring of blood pressure, pulse and mood, and a variety of ultra-precise scans). The outcome will be nothing short of a new “science of individuality,” one that defines individuals “at a more granular and molecular level than ever imaginable.”
Full article by Abigail Zuger, M.D. on the genomics revolution in The New York Times.
Photo by Charlie Riedel from The Associated Press.
Dr. Ed Friedlander, a Kansas City pathologist, has “No CPR” tattooed on his chest to prevent heroic measures should his heart stop.
Read more from Maria Sudekum from The Associated Press in The Washington Post.
The Center for Health Market Innovations has identified more than 1,000 (mainly private sector) programs in 108 lower and middle income countries. They include:
Primary Care Clinic Chains… often for-profit—are set up to standardize quality and give low-income people more care options. Many chains operate in urban areas where large volumes can help them keep prices down. Inspired by the US drug store chain CVS’s Minute Clinics, entrepreneur Breno Araújo conceptualized Saúde 10 for launch in Rio de Janeiro. LiveWell’s anchor clinic in Nairobi is fully automated to reduce waiting times and provides consultation, diagnosis, and treatment for a wide range of illnesses.
In New York, it is unusually common for developmentally disabled people in state care to die for reasons other than natural causes.
One in six of all deaths in state and privately run homes, or more than 1,200 in the past decade, have been attributed to either unnatural or unknown causes, according to data obtained by The New York Times that has never been released.
The figure is more like one in 25 in Connecticut and Massachusetts, which are among the few states that release such data.
More from The New York Times.
The UK Sun reports that a woman, 74, died in a UK hospital after wrongly being given a “do not resuscitate” tag. Nurses stood by as she gasped for breath. Earlier, the Telegraph reported that medical teams in UK hospitals routinely issue “do not resuscitate” orders without consulting with families or patients.