This is one of the most important times in our lives. Put away People and US Magazine for a brief moment and pay attention to what is going on right now in our country. We are on the brink of making an instrumental change to our health care system. We have a chance to restructure our current system to provide the necessary and vital health care to all Americans.
Obama’s health care proposal will in the long run save us money and more importantly lives by shifting away from expensive acute interventional care to primary and preventive care. Our health system is currently run by the free market, which only emphasizes monetary gain over humanity and healing. Preventive medicine would help purge us of our current epidemics: obesity, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. These are diseases that can largely be controlled by proper preventive medical guidance, which millions of hard working Americans cannot afford to attain.
Most heroic interventions that are done in the United States today are done to repair the physiological damage that could have been prevented. These interventions are not cheap, making our health care system one of the most expensive in the world, despite millions of Americans who are uninsured.
As your cohort, I understand the barrage of pop culture, glitz, and glamour that appear to be more exhilarating to pay attention to than health care reform, but when our six day a week vodka water days dry up and we have children, aging parents, and our own aging bodies to deal with, health care will be something we will care about.
Watch for propaganda. Carefully research your own facts before you form your opinion. Don’t look to the politicians (Democrat or Republican) for your information. This is not the time to follow blind party mandates.
Neoliberal economics began in the Regan Era. For us, who are born in the 70’s and 80's, it is all we know. We have been taught that time is money and material wealth will bring us infinite happiness. I have faith that our current climate of change will change us as a generation from the pursuit of money to the pursuit of happiness and humanity for all.
Monday, July 20, 2009
If free market health care is what you want, then you better tip well!
The term, "socialized medicine", has begun to hold a stigma. Socialized. Like Socialism. We Americans don't like that! Many have argued that the American health care system is doing just fine the way it is. Socialized medicine would be the downfall of us all. Although Obama’s health care proposal is not stringently socialized medicine by definition, critics are slapping this label on it.
Let's take a closer look at how health care in the United States is actually structured. Neoliberal philosophy and principles of capitalism have found its way into medicine. So much so, that textbooks are being re-written to change the word, "patient" to the word, "client." Health care professionals sit in on in-services that instruct us to treat patients like consumers/customers. The customer is always right, right?
If you want a free market health care system that runs on principles of neoliberal capitalism, let's not half ass this thing! Let's go all the way! I am proposing a new health care system that is wholly in tune with spirit of capitalism and free market principles.
As it is now, some people can't afford health insurance. Too bad for them. They must have not worked hard enough in life to be able to afford this luxury. Remember: it's a luxury, not a right.
Just like in other industries, money gets you the best products. Why drive a KIA if you can afford a Mercedes that is suped up with all the latest technological safety devices, right? In our health care system, I propose a similar primary principle: the more money you have, the better health care you can get.
We will divide hospitals into tiers with the best hospitals costing the most. There will be the five star hospitals with the best health care practitioners doling out the best and innovative health care, just like how the hospitality and food and beverage industries are structured.
The rest of us lazy people who did not get our lives together to be wealthy enough to deserve such superb care will go to the other hospitals, the affordable and decent service hospitals, the Applebee's of hospitals, if you will. The dregs of society who are poor will go to the McDonald's of hospitals, getting mediocre health care from health care practitioners that are not getting paid enough to care.
I'm a nurse. So, I want to get a piece of the big business hospital action. I propose instituting a gratuity policy in health care. If you want good health care service, you better tip well. Because if you don't, when you go into cardiac arrest, I might not run on over to your bedside with the crash cart as fast as I can. I might be too busy catering to my other patient that was smart enough to leave me a hefty tip. Tip your nurses well, folks!
As it is, we are already marching toward this kind of health care system built on the principles of neoliberal philosophy. We should just be honest about it. The relationship between health care practitioners and patients has been reduced to a relationship based on financial exchanges. Health care professionals have invaluable services or products and patients have a demand for these goods. There will be no humanity in health care. There is no room for that when there is money to be made.
In my proposed health care system, hospital and medical groups will treat patients like how corporations treat consumers by spending large sums of money hiring consulting and advertising firms to figure out how to get and keep their clients. Actual medicine will take a backseat because it will not be about how well you treat your patients, but how well they think you are treating them.
We will treat our patients with the primary focus on how much money we can make off of them by ordering labs, tests or various other diagnostics, or performing interventions they may or may not really need. (Wait. We may already be doing that. Score!) But who cares? We want to bill them and their insurance companies as much as we can!
Socialized medicine? Who wants that? Health care for all? Are you crazy? Look at all the millions we could be making off of people's illnesses, their suffering, and their pain? Patients are vulnerable. They are lay health people. We can tell them anything and because they are fearful of death and disease, we can make a killing!
We want your money even after you're dead. If you die... Oh, well. At least, we can still bill for it. Even when you are dead and cold, we will still be able to spend your money. And that's what matters the most.
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