April 8, 2008.
Stop That Patient! (Or The Corpocracy Rules, Part 1)
I had a stomach ache coming home on the plane this weekend from vacation
in Costa Rica and I couldn't tell if it was coming back online (literally
as well as figuratively) to America's prescription drug woes, the unwashed
fruit I had for breakfast in Costa Rica, or the magazine I was reading on the plane.
You see the March 16, 2008, issue of Forbes magazine had a cover title called
"Stop That Patient!" about how large general hospitals have infection and
mortality rates that are 400%-1000% higher than specialty hospitals that
focus on specific problems, like angioplasty or hip replacement.
I mean we all get so excited about pills that 'slash' the
risk of heart attack by 25%-- how about if I told you I had a pill for
you that would reduce your risk of dying by 1000%? You'd be
pretty excited about that one, right? And what's the difference
if you die under the knife or keel over with chest pain while
riding in your golf cart? You're dead just the same. But What was most
upsetting about this article was the hijinks that
the large hospitals are trying to go through to
squash the smaller guys, using arguments like "conflict of
interest" because the smaller hospitals are owned by
physicians. In answer to the question, shouldn't healthcare
consumers be able to comparison shop hospitals? a representative of the large hospitals said
that consumers shouldnt get that information because
they wouldn't know how to use it properly. Indeed! Most of the time we are shoveled a lot of
malarkey about how we are in a Democracy (your vote
counts) based on Capitalism (true competition is good
for business). However, we aren't. It is actually a
Corpocracy (meaning the corporations have more power than
you do and they chum up to one another to make sure all of their collective interests
are being pursued while pretending to compete,
and they don't care a rat's ass about whether
someone in Mexico is getting your job).
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