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February 28, 2009
Help for Obama reforming health care
JAMA also reports (in the March 4 issue - this is amazing that I received it before it was published, that I have read it, and that I have access to a computer to write this) on the Obama transition team community meetings to discuss health care. (Either I was not invited, didn't know about it, was busy doing important things with the family, didn't think Obama's team cared what I thought, or didn't think it would make a difference.) The White House Office of Health Reform is using volunteer labor to compile "synthesize comments into a manageable document" to deliver to Obama tomorrow. Interestingly, there is "no consensus on its (health care system) biggest problems and possible solutions to fix it."
Apparently, the transition team gave a list of acceptable answers to each of seven questions. I suspect that the answer to the biggest problem question did not allow the answers "hubris" or "idolatrous expectations."
One professor highlighted in the article is quoted to summarize the article, "There's this fundamental metric that's missing from our discourse -- what do individual patients value in a health care setting? We need to shift perspectives; we assume to know what value is, what the patient wants, but we make that assumption without any data."
I might agree with Dr. Corvera, if she were to go on to say that such a metric is noncollectable, and that therefore government, or other third-parties have no right or responsibility to make such decisions. But if she presumes that such a metric can be obtained and systematized for a single or third party payor, she will top the hubris charts.
| By Robert Maddox | 4:45 PM