Tag Archives: hospitals

Lessons from a Pandemic

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There are so many lessons to be learned from this Pandemic experience, although it is sad that it takes something like Covid-19 to teach or remind us.

The starkest lesson has been the vulnerability of so many segments of our population. There are inspirational lessons, as well, such as the courage of so many men and women committed to doing their essential jobs even when it places their lives and the lives of their families at risk. We should be immensely grateful for the latter lesson, but it is the former lesson that should give us pause and motivate us to soul-search.

How we can “better prepare ourselves for disasters such as this” is an invaluable lesson as we can be certain this will not be the last global disaster to test our character; both as individuals and as a society.

We must ask ourselves whether it is in our nation’s best interests to have such disparity between those who have and those who can only want. We like to think of the U.S. as a great nation and it is, in so many ways, but we, also, must be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that what we have witnessed, in these trying times, are not all things about which we can be proud.

What are a few of the things we are learning about education and healthcare: two of the essential components of a full and meaningful life? They are also the two issues with which I feel the strongest connection.

All children will be challenged to succeed when learning remotely but many of the students who will struggle the most while learning remotely are the same children who struggle the most in their classrooms. Can we hope this experience will enhance our understanding of the importance of relationships and supportive environments for learning; that these things are more important than determining who can learn the most, the fastest?

And think about what it would be like if hospitals were turning away coronavirus patients because they lack health insurance coverage. Thankfully, we have suspended some the rules in this extraordinary time, but should such rules exist at all? Would turning away patients with other life-threatening medical conditions be more justified than turning away coronavirus patients? Would the converse also be true?

Imagine the turmoil if the families of Covid-19 patients without health insurance coverage, both those who recovered and those who succumbed, begin receiving bills for their hospital and medical care. Is medical and hospital care for the sick and injured a right of citizenship?

The world around us is changing at such a pace that many of us do not even notice that things have changed. Does not this world-wide pandemic demonstrate how interconnected we are, on whichever corner of this planet we might reside?

Maybe it is time to step back and challenge all our assumptions about what is “just” and what is “unjust”; and about what differentiates “inequality” and “equality; about what makes a great nation.” Possibly we should rethink the logic behind all our government’s policies, both domestic and foreign.

We know that people are the same, in many ways, wherever they may live, but is anyone else concerned that Americans seem a little bit more likely to hoard scarce resources; to “not let this thing keep me from partying;” or to protest “shelter-in-place” policies because getting what they want is not only more important than other people getting what they need but also more important than other peoples’ lives?

Make no mistake, the world will never be the same after this 2020 “Covid-19 pandemic.” The question all of us should be asking is “do we want to lead or be led” by the changes that will be taking place around us?

ObamaCare Approval Rating Continues to Fall

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Over the last few months there have seen and heard numerous reports that the public’s approval rating for ObamaCare, more appropriately referred to as the Affordable Care Act, has been falling steadily and now rests well below forty percent.

This should come as no surprise. Attempting to fix the American healthcare system by relying on the health insurance industry is like trying to fix Congress by making it easier for people to get re-elected.

The best we can say about the Affordable Care Act is that it was a nice try but one that was doomed to fail because its design was driven more by political considerations than by an understanding of how the healthcare system actually works. All ObamaCare really accomplished was to add another layer of complexity to a system that was already unimaginably complicated.

Until we are ready to acknowledge that health insurance is one of the biggest reasons why our healthcare system fails and, of course, that human beings actually deserve medical care when they are ill or injured, our tinkering with the healthcare system will only make it worse.
Focus on health insurance, if you will. Imagine for just a moment that we all could agree that there ought to be a way to see that all men, women, and children have access to health care when they need it.

Now, think about what health insurance actually does. The health insurance industry restricts access to care to only those people who are covered by a health insurance policy and it limits care to only those services that are specifically covered by that policy.
Assuming, again, that we want everyone to have access to healthcare, why would we be willing to pay the health insurance industry hundreds of billions of dollars to restrict care to a special few individuals and to limit care to only services that have been specifically identified?

And, yes, I’ve heard the argument that we over-estimate the amount of money siphoned off by the health insurance industry. Just the opposite is true. We grossly underestimate the degree to which the health insurance industry contributes to the rising cost of healthcare. The cost of health insurance is not just the result of that portion of our premium dollars that are retained by the health insurance industry after payment of claims to providers.

The cost of health insurance also includes every dollar that is spent by doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, out-patient surgery centers, rehab facilities, lab and imaging centers, home health care providers, and hospice providers to manage the process of filing insurance claims and fighting to get the paid what they are rightly owed.

We could also add the expenditures by employers as they manage the process of selecting health insurance or managed care providers, managing the enrollment process, and mediating grievances when their employees are unfairly reimbursed for care.

And, we could factor in how much the health insurance industry pays to influence legislators. And then, of course, there is Medicare and Medicaid.

If we could recoup every healthcare dollar expended by people like you and me, and also by our employers, that does not end up in the hands of actual providers of care we could afford to provide comprehensive healthcare and prescription drugs to every American man, woman, and child.

And, if you want “to hear the rest of the story,” as Paul Harvey used to say, take a look at my book, Radical Surgery: Reconstructing the American Health Care System Continue reading →