Friday, April 22, 2011

Paul Krugman's "Patients Are Not Consumers": Patients Incapable of Deciding for Themselves

In his New York Times op-ed entitled "Patients Are Not Consumers" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/opinion/22krugman.html?hp), Paul Krugman tells us that he has reexamined Republican arguments against Obama's Independent Payment Advisory Board, and objects to Republican efforts to “make government health care programs more responsive to consumer choice.” Krugman asks:

"How did it become normal, or for that matter even acceptable, to refer to medical patients as 'consumers'?"

Krugman questions whether patients should even be allowed to have a say regarding their medical care:

"Medical care, after all, is an area in which crucial decisions — life and death decisions — must be made. Yet making such decisions intelligently requires a vast amount of specialized knowledge. Furthermore, those decisions often must be made under conditions in which the patient is incapacitated, under severe stress, or needs action immediately, with no time for discussion, let alone comparison shopping."

Patients are not consumers? Get real, Paul. Patients are forever seeking:

• the best primary care physician for their particular needs;
• the best specialist;
• the best surgeon;
• the best hospital;
• the best recovery facility;
• the best medicine, branded or generic.

Krugman appears to want to take that choice away from patients, who, he believes, are incapable of reaching intelligent decisions, owing to ignorance, stress, incapacity or insufficient time to reach the correct determination.

Is Krugman correct? It stands to reason that this issue will figure highly in the American public's decision whether or not to reelect President Obama in 2012. However, given the crux of Krugman's argument, perhaps even this fundamental right should also be taken away from the American public, given that Americans are incapable of reaching knowledgeable life and death decisions, owing to stress, incapacity and insufficient time, and the choice of a president should also be handed over to a committee.

Obama is running scared. His popularity has plummeted, and although a viable Republican has yet to declare his or her candidacy for president, Obama and his acolytes from The Times are hard at work smearing Paul Ryan. See Krugman's "Who's Serious Now?" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/opinion/15krugman.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss), where Ryan is named ten times, and Dowd's "Atlas Without Angelina" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/opinion/17dowd.html?hp), where Ryan is accused of "trying to push the cost of Medicare and Medicaid onto the old, the sick and the disabled while rewarding insurance companies with bigger profits".

Obama and friends apparently have already seized upon the Republican posing the greatest threat in 2012.

2 comments:

  1. Patient is consumer. Doctors do not and should not go against their own interests. Too often, it is not the same as patient's interests. Insurance has to stand on the side of the patient, to make treatment cost-effective. But insurance prefers to rise premiums.
    And what is your opinion about Ryan's plan?

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  2. Marina,

    In a nutshell -- my opinion is too long for a blog entry -- Paul Ryan provides a much needed contribution to the discussion required for dealing with the U.S. budget deficit.

    Obama is incapable of holding his own in a debate with Ryan (see much earlier blog entry: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2010/02/paul-ryan-for-president.html), and the president will avoid him like the plague.

    Although Ryan has said that he will not run for president, I hope he will reconsider. He is certainly viable and up to the job, and he might just save the U.S. economy.

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