Quote:
Originally Posted by bucks2010
This would only worsen things. What would Medicaid recipients do when they couldn't get assistance with meds for hypertension, diabetes, or a host of other conditions due in part to lifestyle? Throngs of patients would suffer from complications of uncontrolled chronic diseases. It's much cheaper to manage these patients medically than to wait for them to become critically ill and require much more intensive treatment in the hospital.
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At some point, such an approach would require the rationing of care. Honestly, I would expect that such an approach is going to [eventually] be necessary, anyway. The fact of the matter is that the way we provide care is unsustainable and with some 5% of the population eating up 95% of this country's healthcare resources, perhaps some degree of rationing is, in fact, necessary. Perhaps we need to define certain degrees of care available to the general public without "premium" costs. Perhaps, we need to reduce the expectation of treatment/cure to something below the 100% that the public currently expects. Perhaps, we should work to change the public perception of healthcare from what it is today to that of your auto mechanic. When you take in your car with certain s/s, you are often given a general estimate. You are charged for the dx and told how much it might cost to fix the problems. If you cannot afford the repairs, you live with the issues. On the other hand, if they missed something during the brief dx because they didn't do a full repair, their liability is generally quite small (since they did not actually remove X, Y, and Z as this would have cost you more). Further, you are informed (and realize the fact) that your actual bill may be much higher than the estimate. No one expects this service for free but generally people do appreciate their mechanic's help....