Review: "Bipartisan Effort Fights Health Law Rule that Could Raise Premiums" – The New Yor
I love reading articles from established news sources that state the obvious. Of course premiums are going to go up because that is what they are designed to do. You don't ask water to stop being wet.
Here's my two cents on the idea that lawmakers are now trying to fight the very thing that they created. In my world, I sometimes fall into the trap of treating side effects of medicines with another medicine. One striking example is the use of haloperidol (a four-dollar medicine).
Haloperidol is a very good medicine for blocking a brain chemical called dopamine. We know that dopamine is related to aggression. That's why you will get a shot of a dopamine-blocking medicine if you ever find yourself in the ER, getting krunk, and being belligerent.
Sometimes I have to use haloperidol. Knowing that it can cause some wicked side effects, I'll sometimes concurrently start another medicine such as Benadryl. But I willfully disclose all of the risks and benefits beforehand and work tirelessly to keep the dose as low as possible or to eliminate the need for these medications altogether. And my patients appreciate it.
Imagine, what would happen if I decided to just keep treating side effects instead of addressing the problem. Benadryl causes sleepiness, so I'd add a stimulant. The stimulant causes headaches so I'd give ibuprofen. The ibuprofen causes stomach irritation so I'd add omeprazole. And on and on and on. At some point, my patient will seriously wonder if I know what I'm doing.
Governmental intervention in our health care is the exact same thing: they create the very problems they purport to fix by creating more problems that they have to fix. The answer: create a better system at it's source and stop trying to "patch" together a solution because it is literally killing us. P.S.Y.C.H. is a better system.