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Aftersleep Books
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Oxymorons The Myth of a U S Health Care SystemThe following report compares books using the SERCount Rating (base on the result count from the search engine). |
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Aftersleep Books - 2005-06-20 07:00:00 | © Copyright 2004 - www.aftersleep.com () | sitemap | top |
*Weak or absent scientific evidence for providing the service.
*Rather, care is provided under the assumption that more is better--or can't hurt.
*Use of the service is strongly associated with local supply.
The Atlas has established on hard evidence that the length of survival for Medicare beneficiary populations in areas of the United States that have a high concentration of "supply sensitive" physicians, hospital beds, and other medical service resources is shorter than for populations living in areas with an average or low concentration of such medical care resources:
"Medicare beneficiaries residing in regions with 4.5 beds or more per 1000 had a two percent increased risk of death compared to those living in regions with less than 2.5 beds per 1000. ...There were no population groups in whom greater hospital use was associated with improved survival. ...In conclusion, there are good reasons to be cautious about more medical care. In the absence of strong scientific evidence of benefit, there are real risks of harm that should be taken into consideration. ...[W]e see that increased capacity is generally devoted to care of uncertain benefit. Finally, we have no evidence of improved outcomes from greater use of supply sensitive care--and there is some research that suggests that residents of the highest intensity regions may be at risk of harm. ...[The] predicted impact of excess supply sensitive hospitalizations on Medicare mortality brackets the findings from our recent study--a three percent increase in mortality."
Other facts that underline the abnormality of the market forces at work in conventional American medicine include the following:
*The absence of effective clinical evaluative science is total.
*There is no general medical management. Specialists are dominant, and they function autonomously within their own field of practice.
*Barbara Starfield, MD, a faculty member of the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, published a Commentary in the June 2000 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association in which she documents physician errors as being the third leading cause of death for Americans each year. Of course, this truth is never reported by the National Center for Health Statistics, but it is nonetheless a stubborn fact.
*The incidence of chronic disease is at epidemic levels in the American population. For example, with about four percent of the world's population, the United States accounts for twelve percent of new cancer cases each year.
*Since Nixon declared the "war on cancer," cancer deaths in the U.S. have risen from year to year without a single exception. Reporting by federal agencies has distorted this hard truth by utilizing "death rates" instead of the actual deaths.
*Although this fact has not been publicly stated, the medical profession has abandoned the search for a cure for cancer, and has concentrated its massive resources on devising new technologies for treating the large variety of malignant neoplasms now afflicting the population. For oncologists, treatment is where the profit lies. Cure would put them out of business.
I believe it was George Bernard Shaw who once said the height of political folly was reached by legislating financial incentives for surgeons to cut your leg off. In the United States, we have achieved this height. No physician can profit from fostering optimal levels of health in their patients. Profit flows almost entirely from illness or injury, and from the attendant diagnostic procedures. "Consumers" of medical services would be well advised not to pay attention to the angry ramblings of an "expert" like Kleinke. It is evident that he has no sound idea about what the problems are, much less about the changes that will be necessary to resolve them.