Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[Clodfobble]

Jinx, can you explain the over-medication thing to me? I totally agree that over-medication in lieu of actual treatment is a problem that is already ridiculously widespread... but how will the reforms being proposed make it worse?

[jinx]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Jinx, can you explain the over-medication thing to me? I totally agree that over-medication in lieu of actual treatment is a problem that is already ridiculously widespread... but how will the reforms being proposed make it worse?

Just by adding that many more consumers and limiting profit in other areas. If doctors need to see even more patients than they do now every day to break even, they'll be spending less actual time, less actual effort providing care. But if people are handed a prescription, they'll feel like something was accomplished.

Plus there are the perks that come with writing prescriptions, which may become even more important than they are now with the possibility of reduced financial incentives in general.

The interesting factor is that many medical students, when asked, express the belief that pharmaceutical industry contact does not have any influence on them. However social science literature suggests that it would be surprising if doctors were not influenced by small and large services and tokens of appreciation. (8) Gifts create relationships: they create a subconscious indebtedness and the feeling of a need to reciprocate. (9) This reciprocation is well documented in the form of increased prescribing of the heavily marketed drugs, even if those drugs are no more efficacious than other generics in that particular therapeutic area and do not display cost-effectiveness.

I'm not opposed to reform, it's sorely needed, I just want it to actually accomplish something other the feel-good "well, at least it sucks equally for everyone" model.

[classicman]

I'm not opposed to reform, it's sorely needed, I just want it to actually accomplish something other the feel-good "well, at least it sucks equally for everyone" model.[/quote]