My 8 year old son had a run in with a brick wall the other night playing football in the dark. He had a nasty looking bump on his forehead and was complaining about a little dizziness. Normally I'd let a kid-wall collision like this go with only some ice. But the dizziness got me and I took him to the nearest emergency room.
The emergency room docs and nurses did a great job looking my son over (he's fine, by the way). When they told me we were ready to go I asked them where to pay. They said I was all set. Wow. Seemless. No direct economic pain for me other than through my health care plan payments. This is how it should be right? Or is it?
Is it good for our system (and can we really get a handle on rising healthcare costs) if in many instances there is no direct economic connection between consumers and the medical services they consume. Can medical services be too frictionless? Certainly many of our Republican friends, and many economists, would answer "yes." Intuitively, if there is no economic pain people will be less discriminating about when and where they go for service.
But inserting economics can get very dicey very fast. Isn't it good to encourage medical decision making based only on perceived health care needs and not economics? This is why we believe all should have access to quality health insurance in the first place.
Where is the balance? Tough questions.
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