Thursday, November 26, 2009

From Where I Sit

Doctors are not by training or motivation able to understand the organic opportunity to dramatically and simultaneously increase the quality and cost effectiveness of health care in the US.

It is a calibration problem. We (and they) expect to much from their training. That fact is exploited by the usual greedy suspects.

For purposes of discussion, let us consider the AMA. The AMA famously, for decades, has promoted the idea that people going into the profession are from an exclusive and exalted class and therefore deserving of as much money as the market will bare. With the notable exception of PCPs (as a PCP and administrator has pointed out) they are the most highly compensated MDs on the planet. This while the delivery system is a disgrace to free markets.

I pick on the AMA because I have had an extraordinary exposure to their methods and biases spanning half a century. Nevertheless, they are a force to be reckoned with. Given the violent nature of the Tea Party extremists it is downright dangerous to correct this major flaw in our economy overnight.

The approach that has brought unprecedented hope for meaningful reform to this breakdown in commerce American style is successful precisely because it seeks to calibrate these enormous and, far too often, highly destructive forces.

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