When I worked in Government and later as a health care lobbyist, I often heard it said, seemingly in the jest of desperation, that the only way we were going to be able to “fix” the health care system was to wait for an economic or other meltdown such that a new health care Phoenix could arise from the ashes. I must confess that this did not seem so outrageous to me at the time, nor does it now. Just as the “Technology Bubble” burst, and then the “Housing Bubble,” and then the “Banking Bubble,” so do I see the pin approaching the “Health Care Bubble.” The unintended consequences of doing something different are less scary to me than the both obvious and unintended consequences of staying the course.
Ten years ago I dreamed (halucinated) a vision of what I thought healthcare should look like in this new mellineum. We are now approaching the end of its first decade and as I plan to update my Vision, I am hard pressed to see that we have made any progress at all. In many ways we are worse. Since few, if any, others think our health care mission has been accomplished, I assume my dreams are shared by at least some others, perhaps even by Dr Scott whose principled (perhaps courageous given the setting) comments stimulated this posting.
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Peter Hassselbacher, MD