No, I'm not talking about the reprehensible scare tactics used by the Republicans prior to last year's health care bill. I'm talking about the closed door sessions in corporate board rooms of payers, political strategy sessions, and PAC planning meetings. You know - a lot of the people who opposed health care reform. The real death panels are those that want to preserve the status quo. Hopefully, this will make sense after you read the rest of this post.
What follows are some indisputable facts. How they get used in Washington is up to us.
What follows are some indisputable facts. How they get used in Washington is up to us.
- Prevention, wellness, and early disease detection strategies are the best methods to provide both improved care and reduced costs.
- All of these strategies depend upon; a) ready access to care, b) profiling strategies to identify those most at risk, and c) low cost lifelong support for chronic problems.
- Our current system denies ready access, penalizes those identified with risk factors, and denies continuity of care caused by job changes, relocation or aging, for example.
- Economic disincentives to prevention and early detection exist for both patients and care providers.
- Disincentives include nonexistent or low reimbursement for prevention, fee increases or canceled coverage for pre-existing disease, life-long exclusions for pre-existing disease or risk factors with changes in coverage, etc. All of which make individuals reluctant to seek preventive care.
- These disincentives are most acute for the poor or those generally described as working class.
- Lack of prevention and early detection results in failure to prevent or recognize early stage disease which increases preventable mortality, particularly amongst the poor and working class families.
