I'd like to think healthcare developments in 2023 will be better than expected, but I don't really believe it. One of these days, you might read a headline about how Andy Lazris has lost his license to practice medicine, been arrested, died, or worse, is being checked into a hospital for end-of-life care.
I've received letters, comments, and online messages about how I must be a horrible person because of what I write and see, but nobody ever seems to give me a logical, practical, and realistic argument for what I'm missing. So I genuinely ask, what am I wrong about, and what are the facts about it? Because it looks to me as if healthcare is burning, and we're all burning with it.
My name is Andy Lazris, and I've spent over two decades working as a doctor, and let me tell you that I have very little hope for the healthcare system we have. Then again, who am I to tell you that you shouldn't have hope for the future? After all, nobody can predict the future, and I can't guarantee there won't be a better system or at least some leaning towards finding or creating a better system depending on healthcare developments in 2023.
If you shop Health Benefits related books, you might have come across some of mine where I examine and explore the current state of healthcare, and my personal experiences and accumulated data to come to conclusions and offer some truths from the inside. However, the strange thing is that when I write the truth, my nonfiction and fiction books will be slapped with the label controversial. I'm fully aware that I make no bones about stating my opinions, and I do like to play around with satire, but since when has stated the truth been controversial?
In March 2022, Peterson-KFF published a report showing that nearly nine percent of the US population owed a medical debt of $250–$10,000.
Politicians will get up on the stage and splutter blatant lies over the podium, and even those in the crowd who know what they're saying to be lies will do no more than roll their eyes or complain to their peers. Then again, when I present evidence of fact, I must be trying to start trouble.
The Good Or Bad Doctor Is A Myth
How could a doctor communicate with their patients in a way that was understanding enough to find the underlying causes of their symptoms and avoid clumping them in with their previously done diagnoses off the same symptom list?
Communication takes time, and remember, patients aren't doctors, and they don't know what's relevant to mention to their physician and what is normal. So think about it this way, how often do you see a doctor hanging around a patient room just making conversation, not rushing off to see other patients and make appointments? It doesn't take long to realize that our entire medical system is built on a platform of quantity over quality, or rather, profits over people.
A long with that, if you expect your doctor to advocate for your right and their duty as per the Hippocratic Oath, and their duty as per the Hippocratic Oath, think about what would happen.
It might seem shocking, but that would put their license at threat, and if you don't believe me, just buy Health care reform book. See, the wonderful paradox created by our medical industry—and I say industry because it's just an industry at this point—is that it's trained to filter out the better doctors or, rather, the doctors that have a stronger commitment to healthcare and to care in general going to capitalism. So that's a bit of a barrier to better healthcare developments in 2023.
Doctors might be committed to the overarching system that puts dollars first; but they are also for sale or rather for rent. Like in a fantasy fiction book, the medical equivalent of the big bad wolf, big pharma, doesn't even try to hide the fact that they practically put doctors on payroll, with their only job description being to prescribe their medication. As if the fact that it happens wasn't chilling enough, there's something even more horrific about the fact that nobody makes any effort to hide the information.
It's not some scandal that was leaked overnight that Bayer and Janssen, and the rest of their cluster of corporate deviants had to struggle to manage in the press. Unfortunately, they know that we know that they have a monopoly on every one of our lives. Whether your physician works for you based on your insurance, takes independent financing, or is not an MD but a DO, They are all ruled by a gold-plated iron fist that is the system. The system dictates that if a drug makes money, even if the side effects might be a sudden loss of life, then it's to be sold to the public because not only does it sell with wonderfully fat profit margins it also sells and create a business opportunity to introduce a second drug to counteract the deadly effect of the first drug. Does it sound like dystopian medical fiction?
You Can't Fix Healthcare If It's The Whole Problem
I agree to disagree with anyone defending America's $2.8 trillion benchmark for annual healthcare spending. Of course, I don't contest the fact that healthcare is worth that much money, and human life is priceless, but when you go to put a price on it with that many zeros, it doesn't make sense not to show results. Then again, if he may be fully honest, which is generally not welcome in conversations about the healthcare system, we need only look to Canada. Our northern neighbor spends less than us on healthcare, accounting for the fact that their population is lower. However, the healthcare system in Canada is significantly better.
If it's not already obvious, The United States of America, the Land Of The Free, has no control over the prices of treatment and medication. So it appears that the one thing that we can go on is that health is priceless. However, I don't use that as an excuse to charge patients exorbitant amounts for treatments I know they might not even need or benefit from. If you've ever tried to buy a Tylenol or an Advil in a foreign country, you might have noticed that it was significantly cheaper.
Was this because it wasn't as effective as American medication? Or was it counterfeit and not the real thing? Well, neither of those things makes sense because these cheaper medications have been on the market in foreign countries since the beginning meaning locals have been using them for the benefits that they provide. American medication has a higher price tag because it's American.
It's pretty clear that the Affordable Care Act isn't at all to make life easier for the average American family. Unless an impartial party with no vested interest in the monetary gains, not the insurers, handles price controls, pharmaceuticals will continue their reign of debt. Then again, as soon as a partial entity was appointed, how long would it be before big pharma hunted down its members and offered to buy them a yacht for their favor?
Overtreating Issues
With all that said, our medical system certainly does love treatment. If there's something to gain from treating you, they will poke, prod, scan, biopsy—and who knows what else—to rack up your bill. The nation's elderly are no exception. Especially the beneficiaries of Medicare, who are covered by taxpayer dollars, and for whom doctors can so easily bill and then answer virtually no one about what they did for that patient. Patients who are already receiving end-of-life care have doctors come into their rooms for a few moments to greet their families, only to go on to charge them.
It makes no sense, but our healthcare system is so much more expensive done what other countries have, and the rotten cherry on top is that those countries have better health than we do. When you pay for healthcare, whether it's in your taxes, insurance, or direct bills from practitioners, know that you're not only paying for your treatment and medication. You're paying salaries because we spend more, far more, than we need on administrative costs, only for hospitals to be overwhelmed and disorganized all the time.
Money Or Die
According to government data, from 2020, around 8.6% of our populace was uninsured. So undocumented residents and low-income families in the states where Medicaid hasn't kept up or left out healthcare entirely. On the other hand, some people choose not to partake and are even willing to pay penalties to avoid having to pay the premiums on healthcare plans.
America won't have a universal healthcare system anytime soon. Especially considering politics today, it could be decades before public figures managed to spare a moment for the citizens who'd rather put their lives at risk than in government hands.
How To Make Americans Understand, Want, and Need
The public outrage that's ready to go at a moment's notice is engineered by a clever combination of media and political bias, so naturally, it acts as a buffer between capitalism and its abolishment. When the CDC announced its plans to check fewer people per year for breast and cervical malignancies, there was mass criticism. Family people, nonetheless, will admit at a moment's notice that they know nothing about the statistics of cancer diagnosis and the likelihood of the average person being diagnosed in their yearly mammogram. If only people would pick up a health benefits-related book.
Somehow educating the public was not an option, even though research shows that more scans don't save lives. If anything, the odds of overdiagnosis are high. So, my question to you is, where was that public outrage when big pharma was pulling medications off the market after they'd caused someone's death because the company itself had failed to properly test for all its side effects and appropriately warn the public? These incidents are widely reported in the news, and yet, where is the outrage?
As the writer of Three Brothers from Virginia and The Adventures of Yadel the Dreidel, I know that humanity, in general, has a long way to go. purchase 3D Fictional book online if you want to explore these subtle distinctions in 3D. Visit the Andy Lazris online fiction book shop to buy The Great Stupidity. The book comes with custom soundtracks, adding a dimension beyond your reading experience.
Pop into the physician, author, and musician's bookstore if you seek sensory storytelling, non-fiction book online store about the American healthcare system, catchy tunes, or blog updates.
Comments