Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[xoxoxoBruce]

Interesting and possibly telling...

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest private philanthropy fund, sold off almost all of its pharmaceutical, biotechnology and health-care investments in the quarter ended June 30, according to a regulatory filing published Friday.

The Seattle-based charity endowment, set up by Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and his wife, sold its total holding of 2.5 million shares in health-care giant Johnson & Johnson in the quarter, according to the filing.

The foundation also sold millions of shares in major drug makers, including 14.9 million shares in Schering-Plough Corp., almost 1 million shares in Eli Lilly & Co., 8.1 million shares in Merck & Co. and 3.7 million shares in Wyeth, over the same time period. The foundation no longer holds shares in any of those companies.

Among the other health and life sciences-related investments the foundation liquidated are Allos Therapeutics Inc., InterMune Inc., Auxilium Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc.

The only life science-related holding the foundation retains is a 3 million-share stake in Seattle Genetics Inc.

link

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

I'm an occasional visitor to this thread, and a seagull poster (swoop in, skwawk a bit, and flap off...), but ...

according to some things I saw on TV a while back, health care in the US is so much more expensive than elswhere because of (a) insurance costs, (b) excessive testing for every conceivable possible cause of the symptoms, no matter how unlikely, and (c) adminstration.

Why is this? Lawyers. Litigousness. Suing the hospital and the doctor if anything goes wrong. Getting payouts that make the rest of the world gape in awe. Increasing the cost of insurance for the doctors, and causing the docs to do every imaginable test.

Sure, I want doctors to be prudent, and do *appropriate* tests before making a diagnosis. The judgement call is on what counts as appropriate. The opinion of the program I saw is that US doctors, to cover their backs liability-wise, have to do far more tests than anyone else would consider appropriate. It is a risk balancing act - do you spend $800 on a test for a disease if there is a 1 in 10,000 chance the patient has it? IMHO, the US has gone too far towards caution.

BINGO! WE HAVE A WINNER!

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by glatt

Also, US doctors, especially specialists, are paid more than in any other Western nations. There are other areas, like prescription drugs, where costs are higher than they should be, but the insurance companies and overpaid doctors account for most of the high cost in our system.

Well as soon as we significantly decrease their pay the incentive to go into those fields will disappear. I am not sure many people understand what it takes to become some of those specialists that everyone bitches about. And if there are less of those people you will get care from generalists who know a little about a lot of things. The other area that is not being addressed is tort reform. And until you drive down those costs do not expect that people are going to be further incentivized to go into those areas that have high risk.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Well as soon as we significantly decrease their pay the incentive to go into those fields will disappear. I am not sure many people understand what it takes to become some of those specialists that everyone bitches about. And if there are less of those people you will get care from generalists who know a little about a lot of things. The other area that is not being addressed is tort reform. And until you drive down those costs do not expect that people are going to be further incentivized to go into those areas that have high risk.

Gawd, that is the same tired, old argument that is made about ANY POSITION where executives (or whatever) are blatantly overpaid. What a CROCK. No one is saying they shouldn't make money, it's the OBSCENE AMOUNTS they shouldn't be making. I think most doctors in other countries do very for themselves.

And ftr, we NEED more GPs and less specialists if we want to lower costs. The GPs need to make more, and the specialists need to make less.

Malpractice is a very small part of the rising costs.
...Tort reformers like to argue that fear of lawsuits forces doctors to practice “defensive medicine”, which then adds billions of dollars to the cost of health care each year. In fact, a 2004 report by the Congressional Budget Office said that medical malpractice claims constitute less than 2% of U.S. health spending...
http://lansing.injuryboard.com/misce...oogleid=269472

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

You're not just paying for the pill. ... Blah blah blah ...

Then give me the option to provide something as simple as this "pill" so it is just a pill- I don't want to support the local softball team et all. I just want a pill.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by classicman

Then give me the option to provide something as simple as this "pill" so it is just a pill- I don't want to support the local softball team et all. I just want a pill.

Get your wimpy post-op ass out of bed and go to Walmart and buy the pill? :p
Bring your own meds (BYOM)?
Make hospitals not-for-profit, and regulate that they can't spend money on things like softball teams?

What ideas do you have?

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

What ideas do you have?

If you had better glasses - you'd have read them.

[classicman]

Huh? Perhaps you missed my point - There is plenty of blame to go around - don't get me wrong, but the insurance costs are simply a function of what the care costs. That has to be addressed first, doesn't it?

[classicman]

Woman gives birth on pavement 'after being refused ambulance'

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 9:56 PM on 17th August 2009
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A young mother gave birth on a pavement outside a hospital after she was told to make her own way there.

Mother-of-three Carmen Blake called her midwife to ask for an ambulance when she went into labour unexpectedly with her fourth child.

But the 27-year-old claims she was refused an ambulance and told to walk the 100m from her house in Leicester to the city's nearby Royal Infirmary.

She said: "I phoned up the Royal Infirmary, it's just across the road, and they said to go into a hot bath, and then to make my way over there.

"I went into the bath and realised she was going to come quickly. I didn't think I'd be able to make it out of the bath, so I phoned the maternity ward back and told them to get an ambulance out.

'They said they were not sending an ambulance and told me I had had nine months to sort out a lift.'

Today a spokeswoman for the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust said: 'We are disappointed that Ms Blake was not happy with the advice and care she received and will of course investigate any complaint.

'We are pleased that both Ms Blake and her daughter are well and healthy.'

No this is probably not typical, I hope not anyway, but I was just perusing the net on lunch and happened upon this article.

[classicman]

Yeh - that coming form one of those "overpaid" docs...

[classicman]

That doesn't count Rich -That happened in LA!

[Undertoad]

If they believe it will work for pain, it will work for pain. The brain is an amazing thing.

[classicman]

Its the lawyers faults - everything is. We no longer enforce the intent of laws, if we ever did, we enforce the letter of the law. For that we need lawyers. Who wrote the laws? Lawyers - sometimes I think laws are written a certain way just so that we need them to ... Its a sick cycle.

[glatt]

Malpractice insurance increases the cost of health care for everyone. Tort reform would address that. But there has to be something that keeps doctors accountable for their actions.

If I go in for a leg amputation and a drunk doctor cuts off the wrong leg, they should be held personally accountable.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by glatt

Malpractice insurance increases the cost of health care for everyone. Tort reform would address that. But there has to be something that keeps doctors accountable for their actions.

No doubt. The National Data Bank has gone a long way to help with some of the chronic repeat offenders, but even it has some serious problems.