I just read an article in the New England Journal of Medicine by Sean Palfrey MD, a professor at Boston University School of Medicine in the department of pediatrics. Dr. Palfrey dares to state the obvious, in a world in which the telling it like it is can be the kiss of death. Dr. Palfrey writes: Every participant in our health care system must focus on ways to optimize health while decreasing cost, at every step of the process. We need to change the financial incentives currently embedded in health care reimbursement systems that reward the use of tests, procedures, consultations, and high-cost therapies. And finally, the legal system needs to be more restrained about pursuing lawsuits when a difficult diagnosis is missed or a treatment fails, to diminish the pressure on health care providers to practice expensive, defensive medicine at every turn. These are major changes, but today we are far from providing good care for all our citizens and far from achieving ...
The cost of health care in the US is higher than anywhere else in the world, and yet we are not healthier than our peer nations. In fact, in terms of such measures as infant mortality and life span, we don't measure up. Why is this? Many people involved in providing or receiving care have some pretty good ideas about what costs so much, and what we can do to reduce costs and improve quality. Sharing these stories is an important step in creating affordable universal health care.