Greedy Trial Lawyer
Greedy Health Care Providers Are In Control
Category: Gaming The System
John Abramson, a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School and the author of "Overdosed America," has some pretty strong things to say about the health of the U.S. health-care system. He believes it has a bad case of the profit motive. Far be it from me to criticize greed, but the system needs an audit before we have no money for food.
In deadly denial over the crisis facing U.S. health care
Truth be told, the U.S. medical system is headed for multiple organ failure.The spiraling cost of health care is well known: $7,100 per person this year, projected to increase to $12,000 in 2015 and compounding at more than double the rate of inflation. Already, medical care gobbles up one-sixth of the GDP. Even so, Americans ask ourselves, how better to spend money than on the best health care in the world?
Not so fast. The facts show that these enormous expenditures may be buying the United States the best amenities in medical care -- but not the best health.
In fact, although Americans spend twice as much per person on health care as the other 21 wealthiest countries, data from the World Health Organization show that Americans live the shortest amount of time in good health -- 2 1/2 years less than the average in the other countries (69.3 versus 71.8 years).
The problem is, the U.S. health-care system is exquisitely well designed to maximize profits but exquisitely poorly designed to provide the best health care most efficiently. And even nonprofit medical institutions shape the care they offer based on their own bottom lines instead of the health needs of the communities they serve.
In Washington, the Food and Drug Administration is much better at protecting the interests of the drug and medical-device industries than those of patients.
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