The answer to healthcare conundrum -- PTS

As usual, Milton Friedman had the answer to the problem with the medical services industry in this country, outlined in this Hoover institute article provided here.  In brief, the reason medical expenditures comprise over 17% of the GDP in the US, compared with an average of maybe 12% or so in other OECD countries, is because of our reliance on 1) third party payers (employers and the government via medicare and medicaid), and 2) the enactment of medicare and medicaid programs in 1965.  Prior to those two factors in our healthcare delivery system, our costs were comparable to other OECD countries.  The solution, according to Friedman: Get rid of the third party payer system, medicare and medicaid, create HSAs (health care savings accounts), let insurance do what it's supposed to (not provide prepaid healthcare but insure against catastrophe), and watch costs plummet while provider services improve.  If one believes in free markets and we all should, Friedman has got it right.  This article is a must read.

American medical care at work -- PTS

A year and a half ago, a close friend, in a freak accident, suffered a severe neck injury.  Timely medical care, constant and dedicated support of a strong and caring wife, and extraordinary personal willpower, has led to an almost miraculous recovery, for which his family and many friends remain eternally grateful.

My friend was airlifted from a somewhat remote location in Maine where the accident occurred to a regional Maine trauma treatment center several hundred miles away.  He was operated on within hours of the accident by a skilled surgeon and started receiving physical therapy shortly thereafter.  Within two weeks he was transported nearly two thousand miles away to a paralysis treatment facility, underwritten largely by a Fortune 100 company  in the state of Georgia.   After two months of intensive, extremely rigorous rehabilitation he was released to return to his home in California.  Here in California he continued a regimen of strenuous rehabilitation with yet another highly skilled medical practitioner.  One year after this accident occurred, he began playing golf again.  While it took the encouragement and dedication provided by a exceptionally strong and devoted spouse, and while it took the indomitable willpower of a highly disciplined individual for this successful outcome, it most assuredly took medical practices and practitioners in all likelihood uniquely available in this country of ours. Why would anyone want to fundamentally change the entire medical system in a country that is capable of producing an outcome such as this one?  While reforms are needed in the healthcare delivery system, throwing the baby out with the bath water is surely not prudent.  Let's take our time and get these changes in the system right.

This post blog discusses how critical immediate intervention at many levels is in the prevention of permanent paralysis.