Friday, May 15, 2009

missing the point

this is crazy. there was a recent meeting at the white house consisting of "stakeholders" in the debate to lower healthcare costs. here's a link to the people who showed up to the meeting. what group is noticeably missing? how about representatives from the american bar association? i would have liked a commitment from their members to not file frivolous lawsuits against physicians but that will never happen. obama doesn't have the guts to call his own people out on it either. don't get me wrong, i know we need lawyers and there are plenty of good ones out there but isn't this a huge piece of the puzzle as to why healthcare costs are so high?! many physicians practice defensive medicine, ordering too many tests they feel they probably don't need but are afraid of missing some rare problem that can get them into trouble. and when that one-in-a-million problem occurs or the patient is the one to blame for a certain problem, bam! lawsuit. unbelievable. with socialized medicine, missed diagnoses will likely increase in frequency because not everyone with foot pain is going to be able to get an mri. plus you'll have limited access to life-saving therapies. here's a nice opinion in a recent wsj.

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