Physicians Practice - October 2008 - (Page 14)

LETTERS those who now clamor for such a collectivist system, which will lead to the demise of the taxpayer, the patient, as well as those caring for patients. Dr. Hotze will likely remind us in a few years that we could have and should have avoided a messy and expensive disaster because we failed to follow the only theory that really works — free enterprise. —Kenneth D. Christman, MD Dayton, Ohio Thank you for your excellent article laying out some of the problems in healthcare today. The only difference between a problem and a solution is that everybody understands the solution. your publication is doing a disservice to its readers by its biased and selective presentation of issues. Please tell me why there is no mention of the single-payer model of healthcare in your article? Because you claim it leads to socialized medicine (with “socialized medicine” being a no-no to Americans who have been conditioned against this word for decades)? Do you know what “socialized medicine” is? I don’t think so, and neither do 95 percent of Americans despite the fact that they frequently use the term. Thousands of physicians in this country are in favor of a single-payer model. The model has been reviewed by reputable economists and found ﬁnancially viable, and there is no law dear Americans, and they will be painful. Isn’t it clear what capitalism is all about? Proﬁt — at any cost. That fact will always be in the way of a humane and affordable healthcare system. Yes, I admire the Cuban healthcare system. But I also admire the Finnish or the French or the Dutch healthcare systems. These countries manage to be much more cost-effective than the U.S., and their quality of care is signiﬁcantly higher leading to better outcomes. —Günther Rückl, MD, PhD Decatur, Ga. Editor’s Note: Read more about single-payer healthcare in Second Opinion on page 19. MED SCHOOL REFORM “Just because a bright student can master a huge amount of knowledge does not mean that he or she has any aptitude or calling to practice medicine.” of nature rendering single-payer healthcare of lower quality than we have today. Why don’t you post more data on the waste (hundreds of insurance companies with armies of paperturners at insurers and physician ofﬁces and thousands of different forms) and the relative poor outcome of the U.S. healthcare system? Why don’t you mention that a huge percentage of our healthcare dollars go to administrative costs? I have to conclude that your publication is owned by vested interests ﬁghting real, not piecemeal (as all of your proposals for solution entail) reform tooth and nail. That’s sad. But that’s America, owned by corporations delivering to a dumbed-down, ignorant, and distracted populace. There will be consequences from that pernicious combination of corporate rule and citizen lethargy and ignorance, my PREVENTING MD SUICIDES Your Editor’s Note in the July/August 2008 issue (“Healthcare’s Quiet Tragedy”) got my attention. You rightly addressed an important mental health issue. The subject of physician suicide has a relevant concern: temperament and emotional intelligence. The combination of type-A individuals with a system that requires unhealthy self-sacriﬁce, obsession, and neglect of personal mental health, and rewards it with money, prestige, and praise is nothing short of toxic, as evidenced by those who would compete in the nonsensical, destructive arena of “How much stress can you take?” When I went through medical school many years ago, we students were at times subjected to clinical “mentors” who were in truth sadistic, shallow, vicious prima donnas with the emotional intelligence of amoebae. They should have received lifetime prison sentences suspended for as long as they remained in psychoanalysis. Were it not for the better examples of colleagues with more warmth and humanity, the dropout rate would have been far higher than it was. I believe some of the dropouts were too mentally healthy to be willing to subject themselves to what they sensed lay ahead. WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM What must be made clear to the voting population is that not until our congress and their families are denied further access to their excellent taxpayer-funded healthcare program — and thereby forced to suffer their constituents’ problems of access, cost, and all of the other points made in your piece — will any serious change from Washington be forthcoming. Our elected representatives listen only to lobbies; only when they are forced to listen to their families when their own insurance bills and medical illness’s come (as they assuredly will) will they pass humane, cost effective, and inclusive medical care. —Norman Bein, MD, FACS St. Louis, Mo. Your article on healthcare reform caught my attention. After reading the article, I have to conclude that 14 | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | OCTOBER 2008 http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Physicians Practice - October 2008

Physicians Practice - October 2008 Contents Another Reason to Go Cash-Only? Letters How ’Bout Them Gas Prices? Second Opinion: Oh, Canada! Noteworthy Cover Story: Fixing the Leaks: How to Tighten Your Money Spigot Navigating a Lawsuit Ask the Experts The Administrators Desk: What’s Your Mission? EMR: Help or Hindrance? Dealing with Dr. Dangerous E-Mail Abuse Primer The Road to EMR Interoperability Don’t Let Staff Costs Stifle Profits Coding Classifieds Advertiser Index

Physicians Practice - October 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.