It can’t possibly be lost on my few regular readers that I’ve been posting with obsessive regularity about healthcare reform for the last several weeks. There are three reasons for this.
First, I’m doing nearly all of my foreign policy blogging over at OTB. That leaves just domestic policy, the arts, personal posts, and odds and ends for The Glittering Eye. That’s why I’ve been posting some of my favorite, mostly humorous, quotes here on a daily basis.
IMO healthcare reform is where the action is right now in the domestic policy arena. For years I’ve been saying that healthcare reform was in our future and it’s certainly beginning to look as though the future is now. One need only look at the spending trends in Medicare and Medicaid, recognize that we’re not going to abolish Medicare or Medicaid, and the rest is rather obvious. The discussion now is ways and means.
Finally, I think I have a rather good perspective on the matter. One of the regular commenters here frequently observes that we’re all products in greater or lesser degree of our experiences. Like most other Americans, I share the experience of being a consumer of healthcare. But unlike most Americans I’ve had something of a ringside seat to the changes that have taken place over the years. Over the period of the last forty years I’ve had clients in practically every area of healthcare including hospitals, major pharmaceutical manufacturers, medical equipment manufacturers, individual physicians, insurance companies, and pathology labs. Years ago I even had one client who sold urinalysis by subscription through the mail. When Brunswick sold its holdings in Sherwood Medical I had the opportunity of discussing it with some of the guys responsible for making the decision over lunch.
For the last ten years or so I’ve had a number of dentists as clients which I think provides an interesting contrast with other healthcare providers.
The nature of the services I provide has given me insights into how all of these individuals and organizations function from a business perspective. It’s required me to observe their operations, dig into the details, and learn as much as was humanly possible about what made them tick.
So that’s why I’ve been posting so much about healthcare reform. Just in case you’d wondered.
As someone who recently acquired his own ringside seat, I can say that a great many of your posts on healthcare have struck me as prescient. There’s no one in the front lines of the debate making the case that you’ve made, and that’s a damn shame.
Greg Mankiw has posted a series of interesting links and personal thoughts on health care at his site. They start on June 19.
I’m in broad agreement with Dr. Mankiw on most of what he has to say. I linked to the Friedman article in one of my very first posts on healthcare reform here. And you won’t see much here on the bang for the buck argument. BTW I think there are demographic reasons for the difference in outcomes between here and other countries that we’re too PC these days to consider.
However, I think he’s too quick to dismiss the supply argument for the difference in physician income here. I’d have more sympathy if the number of primary care physicians were rising at the rate of increase of the general population.
I wish he’d write more on politically plausible approaches to reforming healthcare that might actually solve the problems we’ve got.
“However, I think he’s too quick to dismiss the supply argument for the difference in physician income here. I’d have more sympathy if the number of primary care physicians were rising at the rate of increase of the general population.”
I’m shocked to see you make that comment. 😉