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YourDoctorintheFamily.com |
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DrRich's Grand Unification Theory of Health Care - Contents - SECTION 1 - The importance of the doctor-patient relationship and why we can't have it anymore SECTION 2 - The truth about health care rationing Part b. Why we're rationing covertly Part c. Why covert rationing is destructive SECTION 3 - Health Care 2000 - how it got this way SECTION 4 - Secrets of managed care SECTION 5 - Portrait of a modern HMO SECTION 6 - The Clintonians Strike Back SECTION 7 - Rationing and Death - Covert rationing and end-of-life care |
Even on the surface it is easy to understand why our society, faced with the prospect of having to ration health care, might opt to do it covertly. Simply put, rationing is unacceptable. No politician with a brain in his or her head would stand up in public and admit that rationing is necessary. To do so would become their last public act. To a politician, and to every policy maker with an ounce of common sense, covert rationing looks far less onerous than the alternative.
In fact, just trying to visualize how we would do it might be enough to convince most reasonable people that open rationing would be insurmountably awful. Just imagine. There, on C-SPAN, in some Congressional meeting room, the American Heart Association is squaring off against the American Cancer Society in the battle for dollars. Tune in at 2 PM to watch a group of women with breast cancer testify as to why they should get funding priority over those children with leukemia sitting at the next table. It’s hideous to contemplate.
But, aside from the fact that figuring out how to do it doesn't necessarily have to be quite that bad, open rationing actually turns out to be the lesser of the two evils. To see why, it is necessary to consider the real reasons behind our decision to ration our health care covertly, and where covert rationing inevitably leads us.