by smallpoxgirl » Wed 19 Aug 2009, 14:58:40
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rangerone314', 'F')or example, I doubt a stethoscope costs 10X what it did in 1978. So logically if costs go up 10X, there are some costs going up 2X because of normal inflation and somethings going up like 30X.
I doubt if the cost of a stethoscope has even doubled. The problem is that, in 1978 doctors used x-rays and stethoscopes to diagnose whether your cancer was progressing. In 2009 they use PET scanners and MRIs. PET scanners and MRIs are insanely expensive, and the cost of making the payments on the PET scanner gets tacked on to your x-ray. Since 1978 there's been, I think 7 generations of CT scanners. Every time a new generation comes along, the hospital packs up the old one and sells it to India and gets the new one. Penicillin is virtually free, but nobody gets treated with Penicillin anymore. They get $20,000 worth of Zivox and Xigris. In India, if an outpatient surgical center has a fatality or two, its recognized as an inherent risk of medical care. Here it's a terrible scandle and you get eighteen different regulatory agencies trying to close the place down.
The fundamental problem with American medicine is that we're living in a Star Trek fantasy where everyone lives forever thanks to tricorders and other miracle cures. The reality is that a lot of American medicine is beyond our ability to afford and it provides very little in the way of tangible benefits. The Indians don't have the resources to indulge in such self delusion, but Americans are still holding on tenaciously to the fantasy. We absolutely must bring ourselves to deal with the reality that virtually all of the diagnostic and treatment modalities that provide a reasonable cost/benefit ratio were discovered before 1990. We must accept that if our life expectancy is going to rise significantly it's going to be because we address the health impacts of poverty, bad diet, and such, not because of any new breakthrough in medicine. We need to strive for living as long as our parents at a cost we can afford. Only once we accept that reality can we have a reasonable discussion about reforming healthcare. Obamaclaus is making a bunch of promises that he simply can't fulfill. Our society doesn't have the resources, will, or inclination to provide Star Trek care to the entire population. It would simply consume too much of the GDP.