Bloggasm

Ace of Trump: By way of introduction, I’d just say that I’m a 42 year old glaucoma specialist who’s been practicing in Illinois for 11 years after training in New York and Philadelphia.

Simon Owens: As a doctor, how efficient do you think American health insurance companies are compared to other countries?

Ace of Trump: This is a difficult question to answer because it requires hard data that I don’t have and also raises the issue of what “efficiency” means. I’m presuming that the question relates to how cost effective medical care in the US is relative to other countries. The biggest problem that we have here is that most of the healthcare dollars spent in the US are spent at the very end of people’s lives.

We don’t know when to say enough is enough. We have 90 year olds getting cardiac bypass surgery etc. We’re so used to how sophisticated care is now that we want everything done all the time. In nationalized systems this is less of an issue because there is more overt rationing of care. That doesn’t mean that I think that’s a good thing, because in some places such as
Britain, there are age cut offs for certain things which don’t seem to make sense either.

We also have a big problem with frivilous medical malpractice suits being filed here, which causes doctors to practice defensive medicine and order tests and consultations that really should not be needed, but are ordered so as to protect the doctor from malpractice suits. Nationwide, about 90% of these suits are actually won by the doctor and/or hospital, so that should give you an idea of how many nonmeritorious lawsuits are being filed.

So overall, there is a lot of money being wasted here that could be going towards good patient care, but is not.

SO:The Democrats are pushing for universal healthcare: Is this realistic?

Ace of Trump: Nationalized care is probably coming to the US, but it’s going to be a disaster, even worse than it is in most countries. First of all, about 40- 45% of Americans are covered by either Medicare or Medicaid, and both of those systems are socialized, government run systems. So already many Americans are receiving their medical care from a government run system. As the population ages, that number will get larger.

But, for the rest of the population, I think the cost of medical insurance is going to become prohibitive enough due to the problems I talked about in the first question that many people will not be able to afford insurance, and will then push for nationalized healthcare. Americans, however, are not used to being told they can’t have something, or being told they have to wait six months to get in to see a certain specialist, so I think Americans are in for a very rude awakening.

I don’t think a nationalized system is feasible here, and it doesn’t seem to work very well anywhere else either. There are market-driven reforms which could be made in the US which would go a long way towards fixing the system, but it remains to be seen whether we’ll actually see them.

SO: Are we taking the Bird Flu too seriously or not seriously enough?

Ace of Trump: Bird flu from what I’ve read is overhyped. There are probably many people exposed to it that never get sick, and most of those who do get sick to not die. So I think it’s much ado about very little, but we’ll have to wait and see.

SO: What are the five blogs everyone should be reading (besides your own)?

Ace of Trump: My five favorite blogs would be (in no particular order) Little Green Footballs, Jihad Watch, Powerline, Healthcare blog, and Medpundit.

You can find Ace of Trump over here