WHY HEALTHCARE REFORM WON'T WORK

As a former Home Care Administrator in Phoenix, and living with a registered nurse for over thirty years, health care is a daily discussion topic.  During our dialogue, we have lamented the slow destruction of health care as a healing ministry to the rise of health care for profit.  Like the politics of our country, health care has sold its soul to the highest bidder and has become a culture of serving the dollar rather than the person.  While many laud the recent healthcare reform by the government as providing better access to care, it is new clothes on the same emperor and holds no hope for better and responsible healthcare.  The reform is doomed for failure since it does not address the root issue; corporate profits.

Insurance corporations, pharmaceutical companies and accountants have taken over the healthcare industry, assumed the roles of healthcare professionals and the public is held hostage.  Here are but a few examples:

1. The primary care physician, as the main healthcare decision consultant, has been replaced by the table of allowances of  insurance companies.
2. Accountants have replaced medical professionals as hospital and healthcare administrators with operational oversight.
3. Nurses have been transferred to middle management positions to oversee healthcare business models rather than providing the services they were trained to perform; patient care.
4. The nursing functions have been relegated to social workers, CNA's, administrative assistants  and others who do not possess the skill set for the task, but are less of a budget expense than nurses.
5. Physicians are employed by hospitals, (also referred to as "hospitalists",) to provide in-patient care without an established rapport with the patient or the benefit of personal follow up after discharge, again removing the primary care physician from the loop.
6. Pharmacy formularies repeatedly change based on drug prices and the ability to reduce expenses and make a profit.

This is not recent or new information. No group realizes this more than faith based providers. Catholic Healthcare, Baptist Healthcare Group, Lutheran Healthcare Ministries and others bought the sales pitch from the business community in the 1990's. They promised to ensure the financial health of the institution so the care givers could concentrate on healing. The money lenders won and the rest is history.

If we are to return to a healing art, we must rediscover that medicine belongs to the community as a right, not as a business.  Until we allow healthcare workers to function within their skill set rather than than the budget any reform will continually fail.  I don't want a surgeon doing my taxes or an accountant planning my healthcare.

In the final examination it is about rediscovery, not reform.

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