Regina Herzlinger's Failing Healthcare System
In her captivating book Who Killed Healthcare, Harvard Business School professor Regina Herzlinger paints a sad reality of the United States’ failing healthcare system. Herzlinger charges our government, healthcare employers, insurers, hospitals, and health academics of taking the “care” out of health care, or as she puts it, “killing” health care. With 46 million Americans still uninsured and with an annual spending of $2 trillion on health care, the search for an answer to this crisis is one that remains unanswered. Herzlinger believes that the consumer can make reform possible and that the market can help provide a just system, providing health insurance to all Americans. Herzlinger begins by making a case for each “killer” of health care,
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No one knows when disease will strike, care outcomes, and the quality of treatment. Proper information is mandatory in health care decision making, because without it, greater severities can occur. There is also the issue of physicians and hospitals receiving payment for their services rather than the quality of care they provide. A hospital may be paid for a surgery on a patient with an ACL tear, but if that surgery goes wrong and they’re paid again for another procedure, than there is something terribly wrong. This example reminds me of the documentary Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare. One aspect of the documentary sheds light on how primary care physicians are the most underpaid physicians in medicine today. Primary care physicians are the first responders when a patient is sick or is concerned about his or her health, so why is it that they are the most underpaid in the health care community? Physicians have a moral obligation to provide the best possible care they can and they are obligated to treat the whole patient. If physicians carry the attitude of being as productive as possible in order to get paid more by Medicare and Medicaid, then patients will not receive the quality of care they deserve. Herzlinger’s book is one that has opened my eyes to the corruption and almost evilness of our current healthcare system, and has allowed me to think critically about how I can contribute to health care reform. I exclaim that it is a must read for anyone interested in the improvement of the quality and efficiency of our health care
No one knows when disease will strike, care outcomes, and the quality of treatment. Proper information is mandatory in health care decision making, because without it, greater severities can occur. There is also the issue of physicians and hospitals receiving payment for their services rather than the quality of care they provide. A hospital may be paid for a surgery on a patient with an ACL tear, but if that surgery goes wrong and they’re paid again for another procedure, than there is something terribly wrong. This example reminds me of the documentary Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare. One aspect of the documentary sheds light on how primary care physicians are the most underpaid physicians in medicine today. Primary care physicians are the first responders when a patient is sick or is concerned about his or her health, so why is it that they are the most underpaid in the health care community? Physicians have a moral obligation to provide the best possible care they can and they are obligated to treat the whole patient. If physicians carry the attitude of being as productive as possible in order to get paid more by Medicare and Medicaid, then patients will not receive the quality of care they deserve. Herzlinger’s book is one that has opened my eyes to the corruption and almost evilness of our current healthcare system, and has allowed me to think critically about how I can contribute to health care reform. I exclaim that it is a must read for anyone interested in the improvement of the quality and efficiency of our health care