Ortho docs see the same guys over and over, coming in for another knee job because they're still out there on the basketball court trying to slam dunk with the kids. Or the gal with her fourth torn rotator cuff from playing tennis. They come in with one demand, "Fix me again so I get back out there on the court."
If I were medical tsar I'd have a rule: One rotator cuff, one knee tendon, one ankle, one elbow fix, one sports-related fix per geriatric patient. If they come back in again, with the same problem, due to the same age-denying stupidity, they get handed a cane. At least that will keep them off the court, for good. Fixing the same people, over and over again, for the the same self-inflicted wound, is not good medical care, it's enabling. And we simply can't afford it. Some would call that "rationing." I call it tough love.
(Yeah, yeah, I know..."what about smokers and over-eaters." Hey, give me a break. I can't fix everything in a single column.)
The public option will destroy private health insurance
Last year the health insurance biz pocketed $12 billion in profits. They're not going anywhere. And here's a big reason why.
We Baby Boomers are just now seeing our body-odometers turn 250,000 miles. Our parts are starting to wear out. (Trust me on this you youngsters.) Prostates swell to the size kiwi fruit, hemorrhoids deserve their own athletic supporters, the old ticker misses beats, and the plumbing... don't even ask.
We Baby Boomers are going to be worth trillions upon trillions of bucks to the insurance industry over the next thirty years or so, and they're not about to cede all that gold to some government option.
What they will do is what all capitalist enterprises always do when conditions change -- adapt. They will find ways to compete with the public option. And if history is any gauge, the private sector usually does pretty damn well when it's main competitor is a public entity.
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