Bottom line is that we have
morphed the multifactorial healthcare enterprise from one in which many of its
components were previously focused on providing necessary and at times critical
services and products for public good to one of providing profits for
shareholders.
A number of pharmaceutical
companies were once family owned or directed by a foundation; hospitals were
community owned and managed; many insurers were not-for-profit. Our healthcare
system was based on reacting to the needs of sick people; now it is reacting to
Wall Street and what it “expects”.
Can
we not try to understand that there may well be some components of our economy
that should not be viewed from a venture capital perspective? If not, then we
must accede that the cost of healthcare will continue to increase because it
must; that is the premise of how both publicly traded companies and those
managed by private investors operate
.
The
main objective of all such companies is to provide a return for their investors
notwithstanding the means that may need to be employed to achieve their projected
earnings. Healthcare is no longer a concept or an ideal; it has become a
product no different in the eyes of the investment community than any other
product based industry. The result is that profit has replaced quality as the
primary goal.
One
only has to ask why we have the highest cost of healthcare in multiples over
other developed nations and yet the non-business related outcomes, i.e., the
overall quality of patient outcomes as reflected by long established standards
such as life expectancy and infant mortality falls far short.
We
continue to be told that our healthcare is the finest in the world. That simply
is not the case if looked at across the whole of our nation. We mandate
education for children and have laws to compel parents to enroll their children
in schools and provide the schools for that purpose. We do not provide the same
access for healthcare. It comes with a price tag.
We
see education as an entitlement as it is appreciated as critical to the future
of the country. We do not see healthcare in a similar manner with the result
that the same children who are afforded education often do not have adequate
healthcare provision.
The
why is simple. We fail to recognize healthcare as a basic right of citizenship
and rather see it as a benefit that may or may not be provided. No other
developed country holds that belief.
Can
this conviction be changed? The question must first be is this even feasible in
America with the increasing dominance of publicly traded healthcare groups and
the influence they ostensibly exercise over elected public officials from State
Houses to Washington DC.
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