Stop the Blame Game
The AMA blames attorneys for the medical malpractice crisis.
In the movie Sicko, Michael Moore blames politicians (primarily Republicans) and insurance companies for our healthcare problems.
The Duke Transplant Service team blamed “system errors” for a young girl’s tragic death.
We need to STOP the blame game!
No one set out to deliberately create a poorly structured national healthcare system, but unfortunately, one has evolved. The urgent need now is deliberate consideration rather than impulsive change.
Take the Minneapolis bridge tragedy as an analogy of our healthcare problems. Repair was underway on the visible portions of that Minneapolis bridge when the collapse occurred due to suspected, but specifically unrecognized flaws in its foundation. Right now, no one really understands how our healthcare system is “organized” and what major flaws may exist in its present form. Instead, all of the talk regarding healthcare change is centered upon cost and access, two very important elements which are readily visible and must be addressed. But what lies beneath that could cause a catastrophic collapse? What can we do to understand and prevent this from happening?
The first step should be a clear demonstration of how our present system of national healthcare came to be. That study should begin with the structure of healthcare immediately post WW II. America’s healthcare system began a rapid transformation in the late 1940s from a family doctor-oriented form of care to a medical specialist-dominated organization.
The practice of medicine was a state-regulated activity even though each state’s form of medical practice regulation was almost non-existent. The practice of medicine is the least regulated economic activity in America.
In 1965 the Congressional enactment of Medicare radically changed everything. Most states were just beginning to create their first statutes regulating hospital medical staffs when the federal government suddenly became the huge gorilla everyone tried unsuccessfully to ignore.
All functions of any healthcare system begin at the beginning with one doctor treating one patient. That simple, basic, undeniable fact is completely overlooked in every current discussion regarding healthcare change. If “everything” in healthcare begins with the doctor and the patient, how can deliberate, well-conceived change not begin at that point as well?
People are perplexed as to why our present healthcare system performs so poorly, while ignoring the obvious source. Our healthcare system is laughably “regulated” by 52 separate governmental entities, Congress, 50 states legislatures and DC. How can such a system not eventually implode?
Furthermore, tragedies equal to or greater than the one in Minneapolis occur everyday in our current healthcare system, but as random mistakes involving one person (patient) at a time, and pass with little notice. The Minneapolis bridge collapse will be carefully investigated and those findings will be reported extensively in the media. Perhaps someday the same can occur in healthcare. Beginning perhaps with a published monthly death-toll of hospital accidental deaths. Right now almost all of these occur with NO coverage and NO regulatory in-depth inquiry.
Change can be positive or negative. Deliberate, thoughtful and proactive is the kind of change healthcare needs right now. A careful examination of how our system began and how it works, or doesn’t. Knee-jerk reactions and finger-pointing blame games are like making surface repairs on a bridge whose foundations are crumbling. It will collapse. It is just a matter of time.