Health Care

Probably nothing inspires more personal dread than the idea that ones health insurance is not secure. We are unique among the industrialized world, because we seem to be unable to insure our entire population. I have to agree with most of what John Kerry has proposed for our health care system. It might appear to cost more in the near term, but I think that it is difficult to predict lost time, earnings, ingenuity, and productivity from a chronically ill society. Another aspect of our collective consciousness is our reliance on tertiary or quaternary health care. We seem to dislike the idea of public health.

However, we have seen a highly successful public health campaign recently to reduce smoking both public and private. As a result, lung cancer deaths are being reduced. Obesity is another public health care problem not only in the industrialized world but in the developing world as well. We would do well to promote a healthier lifestyle for our population. It will require a great deal of collective will to work on a problem whose effects are not yet visible, but obesity leads to increases in high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease. All are currently major health problems that consume a large proportion of health care dollars. It will only get worse in the future if we do not address the issue now.

The ever increasing prices for prescription drugs add significantly to health care costs. There is no doubt that a delicate balance exists for the major drug companies in terms of the large outlays of cash that must be issued upfront before the success of a product is known. But, as consumers, we should have the ability to use safety tested generics and to import brand name drugs form other industrialized countries. This would slow the trend toward higher prices in this country, and it might end the tacit subsidizing of drug companies by US consumers because most governments place caps on drug prices that the US government does not.

Paperwork is a clear and definable mess for most health care professionals. Legions of administrators have been added to the system ostensibly to deal with the issue. But what is needed is a more extensive electronic filing system, a common insurance application form like the one used for residency programs, and a common insurance claim form. These changes would streamline the system and reduce costs in the future.