What's Wrong With Our Healthcare Services?

By Author: Steven Johnson
Total Articles: 494
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There comes a point in the cycle of treatment when the doctors have done all that's reasonable to "cure" the disease or disorder. In a way, this is all driven by money. It's that moment when there really are no more tests and all the appropriate surgical procedures have been done, and it would not be cost-effective to get a third opinion or do anything more. This is the moment when the insurer behind the health plan makes a noise or your own pocket feels the strain. If everything else was alright, you would shrug and go quietly on your way, but if you're in pain. . . Ah, now what you need is pain management. This assumes everything has been done to fix the underlying medical cause, and now treats the pain as if it was a disease in its own right. Except that's not our experience here in the US. What happens is we keep on seeing the same doctors who listen to our complaints about the pain and just write out another prescription for an increased dose or a stronger painkiller. What wrong with that, you ask? Well, we're the most medicated people in the world and all the statistics show painkillers are the most abused class of drugs. ...
... Our doctors are turning us into addicts.

Well, to blame the doctors is not completely fair. The real problem is capitalism. Under normal circumstances, life runs along quite smoothly with the majority driven by the desire for profit. Shops sell stuff. Businesses sell services. We earn enough to buy what we need. Except, when you introduce profit into the healthcare model, it gets a little bent out of shape. Let's start with the pharmaceutical industry. They make money by selling us drugs. Unlike the majority of other developed countries in the world, Big Pharma is allowed to advertise its products more or less everywhere. We know all the brand names of the leading drugs and what they are used to treat. So when we go to a doctor, we can ask for the drug we want by name. If we are pushy, we can demand the drugs we want even though they are not appropriate. In other countries, the pharmaceutical manufacturers are only allowed to advertise drugs to the doctors. This keeps control over the prescribing process in the professionals' hands. But we have an unholy alliance between Big Pharma and the medical profession. The doctors make more money if all they do is write out prescriptions. It only takes a few minutes to see each patient and increases the amount billed to the insurance companies by the increased number of patient consults. Health insurance companies pay the bills and increase our premiums to cover the cost of the doctor's time plus the high retail prices of the drugs.

This is not to say Tramadol is bad for us. Quite the reverse. It remains one of the best painkillers on the world market, routinely prescribed by doctors in other countries. Except, foreign doctors prescribe it less often and in lower doses. Why? Because they have clinical practice standard regulating how they are to prescribe painkillers. Foreigners do get Tramadol, but they are also referred to pain management specialists who show them how to live without relying on painkillers.