Rumors

I was reading an article, in last week's Economist, about innovation in health care and it was filled with good news. GE scientists, in their Bangalore India research center, have come up with a highly portable ECG machine. It only uses four leads and has a built in printer that prints the results ala credit card receipt style. It works on batteries as well as conventional power and it fits in a backpack. Cost? About $800. Compare that to the much larger old style at $2,000. Then there was story about a heart surgeon, Dr. Devi Shetty, whose flagship hospital in Bangalore, has over 1,000 beds. They do heart surgery there. Over 600 per week. That's between himself and his staff of 40 cardiologists. His staff has acquired world class expertise because of this and the cost of open heart surgery has dropped to about $2,000 as compared to close to $100,000 in our heart hospitals (average of 160 beds) Dr. Shetty has also come up with a health insurance plan that covers 2.5 million people for an average of 11 cents a month. His family owned medical group shows an after tax profit of 7.7% compared to 6.9% in American private hospitals.

 

In the meantime, I found this list of rumors about our own insignificant health care bill that was recently passed…in the country with the 'world's best health care!'

• Requires patients to be implanted with microchips. (No, it doesn't.)
  
• Cuts benefits for military families and retirees. (No. The TRICARE program isn't affected.)
  
• Exempts Muslims from the requirement to obtain coverage. (Not specifically. It does have a religious exemption, but that is intended for Old Order Amish.)
  
• Allows insurance companies to continue denying coverage to children with preexisting conditions. (Insurance companies have agreed not to exploit a loophole that might have allowed this.)
  
• Will require 16,500 armed IRS agents to enforce. (No. Criminal penalties are waived.)
  
• Gives President Obama a Nazi-like "private army." (No. It provides a reserve corps of doctors and other health workers for emergencies.)
  
• "Exempts" House and Senate members. (No. Their coverage may not be as good as before, in fact.)
  
• Covers erectile-dysfunction drugs for sex offenders. (Just as it was before the new law, those no longer in jail can buy any insurance plan they choose.)
  
• Provides federal funding for abortions. (Not directly. But neither side in the abortion debate is happy with the law.)
  

Are some people really that stupid? Why, yes they are…

Regarding that first rumor; I want to be implanted with a microchip! I said it immediately after 9/11 when I had to haul out my ID twenty times before I boarded the plane. I have said it ever since I had to recount my entire medical history to every nurse or doctor I came across during my medical travails. Microchips are not to be feared and I will be first in line if our medical profession ever got smart enough to offer them. But that will never happen. We're lucky they stopped writing prescriptions on clay tablets just a few years ago.