Paving the Road to Hell

You most assuredly recall the debate over Obamacare. The assertion that we could cut costs, add the uninsured 40 million to the roles, and improve quality of medical care is patently absurd. Only believers in Tooth Fairies and Santa Claus are going to buy in to that.

The inflammatory metaphor of "Death Panels" was ridiculed but the essential of government having to actively ration available resources is basic to the concept. Clearly, as we begin to assess the taxes so that four years from now we can impose the New Health Order on America, we are going to have to be re-educated on what constitutes quality care. Our perceptions are going to have to be reshaped. We're going to have to bend the cost curve into a pretzel.

Here's the first installment:

Too Much Testing Really a Bad Thing For You

Did you read that critically? Did you notice who is drawing this conclusion and what it is based upon? The medical conclusion is being reached by the Associated Press. (Don't go to them for your next appendectomy.) It is based upon:

hundreds of pages of studies and quizzed dozens of specialists about overused practices

That's right, literally dozens of specialists! I know I could get dozens of "specialists" to confirm Tooth Fairies and Santas if I tried a bit.

•Americans get the most medical radiation in the world, much of it from repeated CT scans.

And, we have the most CT scanners per capita of modern nations therefore we have more access to an excellent diagnostic tool.

•Thousands who get stents for blocked heart arteries should have tried drugs first.

Of course once you are doing an angiogram, you can place the stent and solve the problem or you can try drugs for a while and run the risk of heart attacks.

It can start during birth, as some of the nation's increasing C-sections are triggered by controversial fetal monitors that signal a baby is in trouble when really everything's fine. It extends to often futile intensive care at the end of the life.

Really? False alarm fetal problems causing too many C-sections? Are you going to discontinue fetal monitoring then? Are you going to wait and see after an alert? Sounds like an opportunity to save a few bucks there and it will only cost a few babies a day.

And, that last sentence about the "often futile intensive care at the end of life" is the punch line. Death panels, anyone?