An article posted by the Washington post talks about how doctors base their patient scheduling on how they can book the most procedures and make the most money.  They do this because patients, Medicare, and Insurance companies each pay separately for each procedure.  The article suggests that a bundle payment system be worked up, and that the doctors would get paid through the hospitals.  Objections raised to this come from many doctors claiming this would put the hospitals best interests first over the patients, and I don’t disagree with this.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/08/AR2010030802421_pf.html

Now, I read this article, and I just think the whole thing is silly to begin with.  One thing a nationalized healthcare plan would take care of would be removing this multiple payment plan.  However the question of how doctors would be paid is still up in the air.  Is a per appointment plan really the best way to insure service gets set up in the most efficient way possible?  Though, I have to imagine that having hospitals paying the doctors could lead to equally destructive results.  I can tell you there would be no Doctor House’s in a system like that!!  Heh.

So what do we do?  Well I can only imagine that a monthly payment would work best.  One that is determined by both the number of procedures performed, as well as the types of procedures.  Basing payment on time, difficulty, and success of procedures.

I cannot claim to be educated enough to give a full analysis on how payment in the heathcare system should be done, though I can claim that our healthcare system could use some serious work J.

Much Love

-Steffan

Recently the FDA has claimed that it does not have enough funds or power necessary in preventing non approved drugs from entering the country.  In response, congress granted them more power…

I have a lot to say about the FDA, and to be honest, I am not so huge a fan.  There are many reasons for this, but the main one is, I simply don’t trust them.  The reason I don’t trust them is due to the large, large, LARGE sums of money politicians get every year from pharmaceutical companies for their campaigns, in the well known corruption that is lobbying.

That is what lobbying is after all…. It is a nice way to describe a publicly known and accepted form of bribery.  It is one of, if not THE, main source of corruption in our government.  The people elected are elected under the pretense that they are going to do what is best for society.  That their goals and motivations are ones set up in order to help everyone in this country.  However, by taking large sums of money from these corporations, their goals change to:  We will appear to be doing what is best for the people, whilst making sure that our actions benefit the companies that support us.

With that being said, how could I possibly be expected to trust the FDA?  It is an organization set up by the people working for the pharmaceutical companies that’s main job is to regulate what those very companies release and don’t release, as well as to regulate what is and isn’t legal.  Trusting that the FDA is doing what they are supposed to is about as silly as trusting that the research sponsored by cigarette companies about cigarettes is accurate, which we all know to be not true.

I do believe they try to make sure the drugs coming out aren’t going to kill us, at least to an extent, though for the most part… As long as lobbying exists, I find it hard to believe that any of these organizations actually have our best interests at heart.  With that in mind, giving them more power just doesn’t sit well with me.

Much Love,

-Steffan