Sunday, January 21, 2007
Cost? Who Cares?
Health Affairs is an inch-thick, highly regarded scholarly journal that comes out six times a year.
The January/February 2007 issue includes a review of a book titled Money-Driven Medicine: the Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much. According to the reviewer, the author identifies the culprit as corporate-based profit incentives.
The overall theme of this issue of the journal is Cardiovascular Disease & Society. By my count, sixteen articles are devoted to that subject.
What struck me was that none of the articles dealt with the cost of treating patients with cardiovascular disease and whether there might be less expensive ways to do it - except for a brief one about patients who go to places like India for their surgery (where the cost is a fraction of that of similar treatment in the U.S.).
So I would offer another Reason Health Care Costs So Much.
Nobody cares enough about what it costs to do anything about it.
Health Affairs is an inch-thick, highly regarded scholarly journal that comes out six times a year.
The January/February 2007 issue includes a review of a book titled Money-Driven Medicine: the Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much. According to the reviewer, the author identifies the culprit as corporate-based profit incentives.
The overall theme of this issue of the journal is Cardiovascular Disease & Society. By my count, sixteen articles are devoted to that subject.
What struck me was that none of the articles dealt with the cost of treating patients with cardiovascular disease and whether there might be less expensive ways to do it - except for a brief one about patients who go to places like India for their surgery (where the cost is a fraction of that of similar treatment in the U.S.).
So I would offer another Reason Health Care Costs So Much.
Nobody cares enough about what it costs to do anything about it.
