31 Jul Real Talk | The Future of Healthcare
Doc gives his thoughts on the future of healthcare.
You know we already have somewhat of a quasi social medicine now. Part of the reason our rates are so high is because we’re having to pay for other people. So that is by definition socialized medicine. But socialized medicine is what we tend to think is more government-run health care. Well it’s getting to be government-run health care. Every year that goes by they tend to tell us more and more we can do and what we can do. It differs by state. Oregon is a very much a socialized health care state. They have a list of what they’ll take care of and what they don’t. We don’t have that yet. We just pretty much say what we’re going to pay for and what we’re not going to pay for. The government controls the reimbursements rates. When they control the reimbursement rates, insurance companies tend to follow them. They’re like, well it’s good for the government, it’s good enough for us, so we’re all going to pay whatever the federal government is. Here’s where the dilemma gets into is when I hear people talk about socialized medicine, Medicare for all. I mean that’s the shouting cry of a bunch of people that want to really reform the health care government. Well I’ve had the experience to be witness to the way the VA handles their patients. And I can pretty much safely say that while I think there’s good docs within the system, the system overall is broken. It is insanity. These administrators at the VA are out of their mind. And you want to bring this to bear on the citizens of the United States? Well let’s just stop and think about this a moment. Name me one federal program that is a success with the government. Is it the post office? No. Is it Amtrak? No. Is it Medicare? No. It’s going broke. Social Security? No. It’s going broke. Medicaid? Can’t afford that one. I can’t think of anything. I mean I’m at a complete loss. I mean this country is going bankrupt. We’re spending more money than we’re ever going to be taking in. We’ll never pay off this debt. And now you want to socialize medicine? Oh man there’s going to be a better way. There’s going to be a way out for this. And I don’t really have the answers. I mean the answers I would give, nobody’s going to like these answers. But it’s going to be rough. And the part that probably worries me the most is I’m not going to worry about my health care in the future. I’m not going to live long enough. My grandkids are going to pay an awful price for this one. And those are the ones that my tears go out for. I mean the federal government can do whatever they want to do in my lifetime. I have no intentions of ever retiring as a physician. I will never surrender my license. Might be taken away from me, but I’ll never surrender it. So I’ll be practicing medicine well into my 80s if I live that long. I honestly don’t want to retire because I don’t know many doctors that are quite as good at taking care of people as I am. So I’ll be happy to take care of anybody as long as I can. And tend to keep up with the stuff. But this future of health care bothers me. You know the access to our health care information, don’t like it. I mean I don’t trust millennials. I don’t trust anybody smarter with their computer than me. And that means anybody over the age of five. Because my five-year-old granddaughters are smarter on their computers than I am. So if you’re over the age of five, I’m not going to trust you because you probably know more about how these these systems work than I do. So, but it’s, I think we’re looking at the future of DRED.
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