Twelve Scary Reasons Why Health Care Reform Might Kill You! - Steve Blacker - MediaBizBloggers

1 One of the principal aims is to supposedly improve quality of care The administration has committed more than a billion dollars to quotcomparative effective researchquot President Obama testified to what this means quotEvaluating what works and what doesn39tquot2 The White House is also pursuing quotbehavioral economicsquot which attempts to explain pitfalls in reasoning and judgment that cause people to make apparently wrong decisions The objective is to create new government guidelines and policies that protect against unsound clinical choices3 Amos Trevsky and Daniel Kahneman the original proponents of behavioral economics wrote quotWe are prone to incorrectly weight initial numbers draw conclusions from single cases rather than a wide range of data and integrate irrelevant information into our analysis Such biases can lead us astrayquot4 Cass Sunstein a professor and longtime friend of President Obama is now overseeing regulatory affairs and will have an important voice in codifying the details of any health care reform bill that is passed He is a quotchoice architectquot which means he believes in redesigning our social structures to protect against the incompetencies of the human mind5 Peter Orszag director of the office of Management and Budget expressed his belief that quotbehavioral economics should seriously guide the delivery of health carequot In testifying before the Senate finance Committee Orszag expressed his belief that he does not trust doctors and health administrators to do what is quotbestquot He wants to adopt quotaggressive promulgation of standards and changes in financial and other incentivesquot6 Doctors and hospitals that follow quotbest practicesquot as defined by governmentapproved standards would receive more money and favorable public assessments Those who deviate from federal standards would suffer financial loss and would be designated as providers of poor health care7 Why does President Obama support restricting potential future care Because by doing so he can deliver on his promise to save money with his new health care program quotLet39s study and figure out what works and what doesn39t And let39s encourage doctors and patients to get what works Let39s discourage what doesn39t Let39s make sure that our payment incentives allow doctors to do the right thing If we do that then I39m confident that we can drive down costs significantlyquot President Barack Obama June 24 20098 Will treatment be limited because of all this quotI don39t think that there39s anybody who would argue for us continuing to pay for things that don39t make us feel better That doesn39t make any sensequot President Barack Obama June 24 20099 What happens when best practices are imposed on patients doctors and hospitals Medicare specified that it was quotbest practicequot to tightly control blood sugar levels in critically ill patients in intensive care This policy was not only shown to be wrong but resulted in a higher likelihood of death when compared to measures allowing a more flexible treatment and higher blood sugar10 A study of patients with congestive heart failure concluded that most of the measures prescribed by federal authorities for quotqualityquot treatment had no major impact on the disorder Medicare specified that all patients with pneumonia must receive antibiotics within four hours of arrival at the emergency room Many doctors strongly disagreed pointing out that an accurate diagnosis cannot be made so quickly For example many cases of heart failure or asthma can produce an Xray that can resemble a pulmonary infection11 quotBest practicesquot puts an individual patient at great risk and forces a doctor to give up thinking through other possible causes and treatments12 Look at what recently happened in November when the United States Preventive Services Task Force reversed a longstanding guideline and recommended that women between the ages of forty and fortynine do not need to have routine mammograms The National Cancer Institute strongly disagreed with these findings Two days later Health and Human Services Secretary Katheleen Sebelius stated quotMy message to women is simple Mammograms have always been an important lifesaving tool in the fight against cancer and they still are today Keep doing what you have been doing for yearsquot The scariest comment was by Dr Robert Truog of Boston39s Children39s hospital He allowed that mammography saves lives but asked if it is quotcost effectivequot Sounds like policy planners are seriously thinking about setting a price on saving people39s livesSteve39s new book You Can39t Fall Off The Floor The Insiders39 Guide to ReInventing Yourself and Your Career chronicles his 50 year career working for over 25 different companies with 189 lessons learned and insider tips from Gayle King Cathie Black Chuck Townsend and 28 others Blacker is still going strong today as a partner in Frankfurt ampamp Blacker Solutions LLC His web site is blackerreinventionscom and email address is blackersolutionsaolcomRead all Steveamp8217s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Steve Blacker MediaBizBloggersFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBlogger

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