I will commend you for THINKING and caring— Let’s fix this problem!!
Sorry for the brief posts last night. I do longer posts in the AM.
Doctoring is a business unlike most others in many respects. I was not kidding when I recommended Starr’s book. The tittle is an unfortunate coincidence. I have a copy on my bookshelf. I STRONGLY recommend that anyone who has thoughts on improving healthcare start by reading this book. “He who does not know history is doomed to repeat it.”. Starr goes through the history of Medicine from the first Doctor and the first hospital in America. But it reads well.
The bottom line is that there are so many Unintended consequences of attempts to “fix things” that have been tried in the past that one needs to tread very carefully. It took over one hundred years of persistent, dedicated effort to take doctors from the despised “saw bones” and quacks to the miracles we had seen until just a few years ago. A century of work can be undone quickly, as we have seen.
There are some things that can be done and perhaps should be done and some of the things that at first glance would be catastrophic for everyone very quickly. Massively increasing the supply of physicians is about the worst answer. In ten years we would be back to the “sawbones” and lodge doctors. In fact, we are just about there already.
Fact is, doctors are not educated in any way about “business” in spite of the fact that until this generation of doctors they were expected to run one. This is why as recently as ten years ago half of new doctor businesses were bankrupt in a few years. In the last generation almost all doctors are employees. I submit this is not good for anyone.
Eliminating the gummint burden would be a good first step. Folks would have to ignore the media caterwauling. Create an environment in which a new doctor has a chance at succeeding at his own business would be a step consistent with conservatism, IMHO.
Many years ago some old doctors advocated the “new” concept of preventative medicine did not fit in the disease model. They were sneered out of the debate. I would submit they were right. Let technicians perform Health Maintenance and free physicians from this to focus on disease.
These are just a few suggestions barely outlined that I think would be critical goals to return the practice of medicine to something near what it was when it was at it’s best. I doubt that any of them will take place, too many other parties have elbowed their way to the table now. It may take another hundred years to sort out what has been done.