The health care circus

[dcsmart]

The PT Barnum Factor in American Healthcare: One Prescription at a Time

WASHINGTON, DC - No matter who first uttered the phrase most oft attributed to showman PT Barnum - "There's a sucker born every minute" - the U.S. healthcare system has embraced and expanded on that sentiment many times over. Patients can and do chronicle stories that tug endlessly at our humanitarian side, reformers cry for lowered costs and personal responsibility, and fans of market-based profits hold tight to expanding a system drunk on its own complexity and over-consumption by a few.
So, who's the sucker born every minute in this healthcare and wealthcare mess? You and me. The patients. The family members. The concerned and committed citizens. The insured and the uninsured. The taxpayers. All of us.

FULL ARTICLE:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/05

[Wapsie B]

1. Complexity is right.

Has healthcare really improved in this country since healthcare corporations began hiring MBAs/MSNs en masse? How much bureaucracy is too much at a local hospital?