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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 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 SECTION 8 - Fixing our health care system |
We have just completed our brief survey of The Problem. First, we looked at why the rationing of our health care is necessary in the first place (whether we want to admit it or not); and then we examined some of the consequences of our decision to do that rationing covertly.
We have seen that covert rationing – whether manifested by Gekkonian HMOs, the Clintonian Regulatory Speed Trap, or the appropriation of “individual autonomy” to the hastening of death and devaluing of life – is causing us two significant problems.
First, it is slowly eroding the basic principles on which our culture is based, especially the primacy of the individual. If we lose that, we lose our cultural identity – and what sort of a people we may become if that happens is frightening to contemplate.
And second, it has caused virtually every aspect of our health care system to become geared toward separating the interests of doctors from the interests of patients. For doctors, the loss of their advocacy role removes them from the rank of professionals, and retrospectively justifies their subjugation by the Gekkonians and the Clintonians. For patients, the loss of their advocates, just at the time when they are most vulnerable, places them at the mercy of powerful forces whose only motivations are cost, profit and power.
This all sounds pretty bad, and it is. That’s why we need to figure out what we can do about it.
In Section 8, we are going to consider the only possible alternative we have to covert rationing (since ration we must). We are going to consider open rationing.
First, we will examine the proposition that that a well-designed system of open rationing ought to have inherent benefits that stretch far beyond merely vanquishing the perfidies of covert rationing.
Then, we’ll discuss six principles we need to consider in designing such a beneficial system of open rationing.
Next, we’ll look at what we can do today, both to encourage a more general public discussion on the rationing of health care, and (in the meantime) to protect the health and safety of our loved ones and ourselves in an increasingly hostile health care environment.
Finally, for those who are interested, in the Appendix we will discuss in more detail how we can actually develop a workable methodology for open rationing.