Health, Money and Fear

Produced by an emergency physician (Paul Hochfeld), "Health, Money and Fear" answers three questions about our broken health care non-system. Why does is cost so much? What does it say about us? What can we do about it? While Congress is more focused on the symptom, lack of Universal Coverage, they are ignoring the underlying problem. COST. Unless they address the perverse incentives that drive up cost, the "reform" we are going to get will be more government subsidies so the insurance industry can continue to thrive being central to a dysfunctional health care system that is better at producing profits than health. The elements of the solution must address the elements of the problem: technology, the fear of liability, mass marketing of prescription drugs, the profit motive, chaos in medical records, unrealistic expectatiions, and the multitude of insurance companies that add substantially to cost without contributing anything to health.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Health
• Care
• Healthcare
• Obamacare
• Obama
• America
• American
• Patriot
• Patriotism
• Insurance

[gtrcello]

thedrp21 - Look, it's real simple, health care and education are not, and most importantly SHOULD NOT, be capitalistic endeavors. There's a basic conflict of interest when you're concerned about your bottom line while administering care or teaching children. A competition-driven approach to either health care or education is just backasswards thinking. Enough already! A blind adherence to "free market" mentality is damaging simply because it's based on a myth. It's an encouraging story we tell.

[Rixar13]

No More Deny, Delay, Defend and Distract.

[elizabethfaraone]

I have only used medical practitioners when I have really needed them. I have sometimes rejected certain treatments, when I have determined that they are unsafe and/or ineffective. I have never felt as though I am entitled to always have a doctor taking care of me. I am my own doctor, quite frankly, and I believe I have usually made the best decisions regarding my health. I also don't believe efforts should be wasted on me when there are people suffering and are not getting needed medical care.

[elizabethfaraone]

In 1982, when my mother returned to her work as a full time registered nurse in a hospital, she told me that medical care would deteriorate if insurance companies continued to determine what doctors were encouraged/permitted to do with their patients. She also understood the problems of under-staffing hospitals in an effort to save money and she always insisted that her floor be properly staffed with nursing, accusing them of creating unsafe nursing situations.

[phochfeld]

Hey Jason,

Thanks so much for putting HMF on YouTube. I put it on blip.tv a couple of years ago, but only put the chapters on YouTube because of file size limits, which apparently you have overcome. Strong work, Pal, whoever you are!!!!

paul hochfeld

[garbageavoids2]

Hey Jason,

Thanks so much for putting HMF on YouTube. I put it on blip.tv a couple of years ago, but only put the chapters on YouTube because of file size limits, which apparently you have overcome. Strong work, Pal, whoever you are!!!!

paul hochfeld

[bodryn]

This is quite a comprehensive and impressive video, done by people who should know a lot about the system.

[urbanverificationist]

Theres far too little price transparency in the medical technology market. Without an open marketplace of prices and services, its difficult for hospitals and clinics to know whether theres a better deal elsewhere, and manufacturers can keep costs high. More significantly, medical technologies still tend to rely on an expert class to actually deploy the technology. GPS may have turned us all into amateur navigators, but CT scans havent turned us into hobbyist radiologists

[JDSackman]

That is really the ideological heart of this debate. Is it every man for himself, or all we all in this together? My Mother (the child of anarchist revolutionaries) taught me that "No Man is an island, entire of itself, each is part of the whole . . . any person's death (or ill health) diminishes me, for I am involved in Humanity."

[TheSpankymonkey]

"Ah, so now we get to the heart of the matter." - No, actually we don't. There can be no greater liberty than the right to live. So using that as a starting point of reference, anything you have to say on the matter of liberty is absolutely mute. Go find a new argument, the one you have is boring/ridiculous/ranting/luna­cy.

[TheSpankymonkey]

"You have taken your attack on liberty too far, i.e. health care, and the people are responding." - But you are not responding are you, you are sat on youtube talking crap. The whole lot of you are completely impotent and worthless. Health reform will be made, not because of your opinion, but because it has to. Simple, you might as well climb back in your hole, nothing you say will make a difference in the same way the village doesn't ever listen to it's idiot.