cosmetic discounts and medicine as a commodity
@ruraldoctoring on twitter for this.
“Botox Fridays” anyone? that’s how Dr. Don Mehrabi, a dermatologist in Beverly Hills, Calif., advertises his weekly promotion.
The original article from NY Times states salient points on how these tactics have an effect on the public’s perception of the medical profession. Will medical care be viewed as a commodity?
- “…such price-cutting blurs the line between the tactics of commerce and the practice of medicine, in which physicians have traditionally encouraged treatments based on a patient’s condition or concerns, not on the doctor’s bottom line.
- “Promotions in which existing clients receive discounts or special treatment for sending friends to their doctors can also be ethically fraught.”
- “It skews the caution of proper decision-making,”
- “It simply reduces it to a commodity and that’s dangerous,”
Will universal health care encourage such a perspective as well? DrCris notes in her post about “Valuing medicine and buying the right to complain“.
“Partly, this attitude is due to the medical system in Australia. In Australia, you don’t have to pay for quality medical care. Free healthcare is provided by the government through medicare. But if you choose to pay for health insurance, you can access prompter service, and select your doctor. Patients think they deserve good healthcare, and they have a right not to have to pay for it.”
Let’s not forget that a universal health care systems can come with its problems as well. Let us remember that, even as blogs all over focus on how Obama’s presidential election could bode for the healthcare system. i mentioned it in my post some time back about the problem of “malingering”, a way of abusing the a welfare-based system.
