Jessie Gruman, Executive Director of the Center for the Advancement of Health, offers an essay on “consumer-driven health care” on the Center’s website.
She writes that:
“Consumer-driven health care tells you it will pay 100 percent for your screening and early detection costs because you can’t be trusted to go to the doctor on your own when you feel healthy. But when you are sick and least able to make a rational decision, it tells you to make your own call on which expensive drug to take or whether to opt for surgery.
It tells you to spend only when necessary and only on the best treatments. But it gives you no real information on which measures are the best.
The incentives in consumer-driven health care are backwards. …
The belief that the consumer is at fault for excessive health care spending will just lead to solutions that not only don’t work but also result in more cases of preventable illness. It adds insult to injury - it’s your own damn fault you are in the hospital or grave….”
Posted by schwitz at February 8, 2006 10:04 AM | TrackBack