Health Care and allocation

[BluesMan]

As a health care consumer what is your thought on dramatically reducing the cost of health care by eliminating “heroic” services that have poor outcomes or utilize a disproportionate amounted of our limited resources? This question applies to the US Health Care system more than some others.

 

Some thoughts;

By offering some of these services many individuals are unable to purchase insurance or access preventative medicine, thus the single mother of 2 dies from breast CA. While the end of life patient is resuscitated, and if the code team is "successful" the person is placed on artificial life support then dies 3 weeks later after amassing a bill of $700,000 that Medicare pays $75,000 and the rest gets passed on to the consumer.

[Michaelangelica]

See

NEJM -- Market-Based Failure -- A Second Opinion on U.S. Health Care Costs