propaganda

[tim]

So there's a meme going around that it's not doctors or hospitals (you know, the ones who get richer by providing unnecessary care), but rather, patients who are to blame for the rising cost of health care, because they demand too much medical treatment.

Do you think so? Have you ever demanded care that was above and beyond what you needed? Have you known anyone who went out and got health care just for fun?

Or could it be that convincing people to blame themselves is a powerfully politically disempowering tactic?

I'm listening to an NPR program at the moment talking about how things would be better if people would just trust their doctors, who are currently cowed into submission giving patients the unnecessary and potentially harmful care they demand because insurance won't reimburse them for spending extra time explaining to the patients that it's not necessary, and due to fear of malpractice suits.

But why should you trust someone who puts their fear of losing money ahead of your welfare?

Comments

[juli]

Did they give any information on how to cow doctors into submission? Hasn't been my experience on things where I am right and where it really matters that I am right that it comes easily.

[tim]

Seriously! I've gotten "Did you look that up on the Internet?" with an accompanying sneer, because it's obviously a shameful thing to think for yourself and take responsibility for your own health.

[juli]

Knowledge disempowers the doctor, which is bad for some legitimate reasons, but sneering is probably also a meme handed down from snake oil salesmen and other good nineteenth-century ancestors of the modern western doctor.