Monday, August 31, 2009

"Sorting Fact From Fiction on Health Care"

Current Congressional proposals would significantly change your relationship with your doctor.

Excerpts:

"There are domains of medicine where a patient has no control and depends on the physician and the hospital to provide best practices. Strict protocols have been developed to prevent infections during procedures and to reduce the risk of surgical mishaps. There are also emergency situations like a patient arriving in the midst of a heart attack where standardized advanced treatments save many lives.

But once we leave safety measures and emergency therapies where patients have scant say, what is 'the right thing'? Data from clinical studies provide averages from populations and may not apply to individual patients. Clinical studies routinely exclude patients with more than one medical condition and often the elderly or people on multiple medications. Conclusions about what works and what doesn't work change much too quickly for policy makers to dictate clinical practice."

....and:

"The devil is in the regulations. Federal legislation is written with general principles and imperatives. The current House bill H.R. 3200 in title IV, part D has very broad language about identifying and implementing best practices in the delivery of health care. It rightly sets initial priorities around measures to protect patient safety. But the bill does not set limits on what 'best practices' federal officials can implement. If it becomes law, bureaucrats could well write regulations mandating treatment measures that violate patient autonomy."

2 comments:

  1. Healthcare is only half our worries. Now we have senators introducing legislation to give the President authority to shut down the internet for what he deems a national cyber emergency. Yeah...like too much bad PR? scary the way the legislature is going. scary indeed. the day is fast approaching, Bubba, that government will curb our rights to free speech and public access. we all need to start up our own town newspapers or newsletters. Oh, that's right they control the mail, too. selahV

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  2. Wait till they want to change our relationship with our God.

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