Time Magazine Asks Cleveland Clinic What To Do About The Healthcare Crisis
This would be like Jimmy Carter asking Leonid Brezhnev what to do about Soviet military power, which, like this issue, actually happened.
They had a slideshow, but I was pretty sure they weren't labeled correctly. So I fixed them.
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July 8, 2009 5:43 PM | Posted by : | Reply
See, if you'd spent more time writing grant proposals instead of playing with Photos...er...Gimp, then you would be rich like Dr. Cleveland Clinic!
RstJ
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July 8, 2009 7:06 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Wow, a typo on the cover is bad form, even for a mag hanging onto a shred of relevancy by a tenuous thread of brand inertia.
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July 8, 2009 10:16 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Didn't we go thought this whole preventive health care stuff in the 1980s? Wasn't that what HMO's were all about? And yet, somehow, that didn't work. Moreover, rather than contain costs, costs went way up (and that preventive care costs money and who cares if it doesn't really work?)
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July 8, 2009 10:33 PM | Posted by : | Reply
That "sickness business vs heath business" talking point is such obvious meaningless marketing bullshit, I can't believe I'm still hearing it from the Bravewell-Osher-vitaminista-Sen. Harkin crowd.
Yoga? That's gonna stop teh cancer?
Fuckers.
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July 9, 2009 8:19 AM | Posted by : | Reply
When I was in high school, they switched the Physical Education (gym) name to "Wellness" class for a year. I still hated it and this reminds me of that kind of switch.
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July 9, 2009 3:24 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Can a valid argument be made for dietary + excercise "preventative health care" programs as a way to reduce health care costs for obese/overweight people. I read that the cost of health care related to problems resulting from being overweight annually was something like three times the gross of the nations fast food companies (granted I did exactly zero checking in to the statistic[no idea what qualifies a health care expense as "being related to obesity"]).
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July 9, 2009 4:57 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Diet and excercise can reduce obesity and its associated problems. But this fact doesn't have much to do with health care reform, does it?
Here ya go: Stop eating so much. Move around more.
Next topic.
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July 9, 2009 7:29 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Wait, where's the typo? I can't see it. Agree with the shred of relevancy by the way.
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July 9, 2009 11:34 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Some of us have been aware all along that what's going on in medicine is simply a scam atop another scam, powered by the gullibility of the collectivists and the greed of the politicians and their friends. The "We told you so" that we're gonna have to unleash when it all collapses may be cruel, but will be well-deserved.
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July 10, 2009 10:45 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
typo fixed. By way of explanation, beyond simply that I'm an idiot:
https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/01/the_enemies_of_promise_guard_t.html#c003382
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July 10, 2009 7:20 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"gullibility of the collectivists and the greed of the politicians"
and pathetic boilerplate substituting for insight from the intellectually lazy and the ideologically twittified.
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July 12, 2009 2:24 AM | Posted by : | Reply
My problem with this stuff is pretty straightforward. Getting out of the sickness business and into the wellness business is a way to make much more money. Prevention programs are so dubious at producing results that you'll likely see just as many illness but then the providers also have EVERYONE (not just the sick) getting "preventive" care. Fab.
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July 12, 2009 5:20 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Wholly unrelated but can't see where else to post it: what's with the CCHR ads? Would love to recommend blog to other shrinks but they will take to the hills when they see that.
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July 12, 2009 6:17 PM | Posted by : | Reply
The advertisement that ran at the beginning of the article was wonderfully topical. Think of this as a safety net for your health, it exhorted, for just $29.95/mo. with increasing coverage blah blah blah.
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July 12, 2009 10:43 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Ah, it is a relief to know 'the last psychiatrist' has been very much influenced by Walker Percy !
The title of the blog itself was first clue. Reading just one random post fueled my intuition (unmistakable writing style, type of humor, and the rest)
As I read through a few posts the word 'semiotics' jumped out at me, a chuckle ensued, and now I am a subscriber (the DSM post reminded me of R. D. Laing---he had the best stories of the DSM-III era).
"Good on you" as the Irish say.
Keep up the good work
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July 14, 2009 11:45 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Hi, TIME. Let's play a game called "Guess the data." In this game, I have data, and TIME doesn't.
1. The population of Cleveland has declined 10% over the last decade, and it continues to fall. http://www.strategichealthcare.com/pubs/shcm/f1_EmergencyDeptCustomerService.php
That decline is the worst in the country after Katrina depopulated New Orleans. How much do you want to bet that the Cleveland Clinic's budget increased by more than 10% over that same time period? It's very easy to demonstrate increased efficiency in offering a service to the public when the size of the public is shrinking and the money you have to spend is growing. In other news, guess which city has the second shortest average waiting time in Emergency rooms? Detroit.
http://pressganey.com/cs/6232009/wait_times_down_satisfaction_up
2. Ironically, improving preventative care will increase health care costs. http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050029
This is because fatties that slim down in their 40's don't die of sudden and thankfully inexpensive heart attacks. They live to ripe old ages, at which point they get cancer, strokes, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's and become wards of the health care system. Getting healthier is less expense for the individual in the near term, but it imposes additional burdens on the system in the future.
Finally, this article suffers from the same problem as the national debate on health care reform. No one can agree on what the problem is. Is the problem that people are unhealthy? Or that health care is too expensive? It is folly to assume that those two questions have a common answer.
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July 16, 2009 3:07 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Alone's response: welcome, mighty Pastabagel.
Your point about increasing the costs later is precisely the point. If we stop looking at this as "healthcare is too expensive" and look at it more as "do we really need what we are paying for?" you'll see different things. This is the same story as "meds are too expensive." fine-- don't use them, pick a cheaper alternative. There are very few instances outside of oncology and antiinfectives where a "necessary medication" doesn't have an equally good alternative.
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July 17, 2009 7:41 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Time is crap. Great slide show editing, though.
My favorite section was on preventing mental illness. What handy tips! Why didn't I think of that! All of us with mental disorders will simply have our children's teachers structure the entire class around our child (they'll be happy to!) Give the kid a hit of nice safe effective Abilify, and then wrap up the night with positive thinking exercises! I'm so relieved that someone thinks it's worthwhile to give healthy kids antipsychotics for being fussy and brooding. Nice.
Wow. I feel better already!
Now I'm off to yoga class.
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August 21, 2009 2:45 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I wonder why Abilify is the resident mockery med.
Is it because it costs a billion dollars, obviously representing Pharma?
Is it because it represents media-induced drug saturation into the american consciousness, and is marketed so heavily that it is simultaneously called an antipsychotic as well as an antidepressant (and does a shit job at either)?
It it because it doesn't do anything much clinically, sort of placebo-like, and is given out to people dx with bipolar XIV?
Is it because it's used in pediatric bipolar?
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October 27, 2010 11:13 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I’m looking for best psychiatrist. I need to consult something. I had a traumatic experience when I was a child. It bothers me a lot.
I’ve already found some valuable info at http://clevelandpsychiatrist.org/
But I still need more info. Hope you can help me.Thanks in advance :)
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