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| Thought Leaders: Medicine |
Reform Redux
Len M. Nichols
12/01/2006
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Malpractice reform is another obvious component of a better
delivery system, as is paying providers for preventive health care. These are
measures that we could implement in the next three to five years if public and
private insurers work together and get congressional support.
What really is driving costs up, however, is the overuse of new
technology. We could save trillions of dollars in the long run if public
research institutions and private sector companies invest more money and time up
front in matching new technologies—drugs, devices and procedures—with truly
appropriate patients. Such a move would also help end the incentives that cause
our pharmaceutical industry to trumpet minor changes as major gains. It was such
perverse logic that led Vioxx to be grossly overprescribed and cause many
avoidable deaths, and Viagra to be advertised on ESPN as a lifestyle enhancer,
rather than a clinical problem solver.
There are many ways to rebuild the system, with private
insurance, subsidies, consumer choice and the other details left for future
debates. First, though, we need to reduce the partisan reflux disease on this
subject and simply agree that we all have far more to gain from reforms of this
type than the zero sum "coverage-only" reforms of the past.
 | Len M. Nichols is director of the Health Policy Program at the New
America Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute in Washington,
D.C. |
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