Many of their suggestions are similar to suggestions Atul Gawande made in his New Yorker article over the summer. I would argue that the BW cost cutting plans don't go deep enough - for instance, how can insurers or the gov't mandate "fewer tests" without the medical profession altering the culture in which the decisions to order those tests get made? Gawande makes a strong case that this mentality is deep-seated and growing in the medical profession. Another question I have is that, if insurers have the power to do this now and BW is correct that it would help them, regardless of insurance reform, then why are costs still going up? Why are none of these fixes being considered? Why the inertia preventing improvement? The answers remain unclear.
Like all of the other non-posters on this article, I too have health care fatigue. Congress is successfully waging its war of attrition on the public's waning interest in the subject.
ReplyDeleteThe above data in the red boxes to me exhibit two questions about the subject which nobody addresses - who within health care is going to step up and fix these costs? Now that BW is identifying them, who is taking it upon themself to start resolving them?