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logo    Journalists Fail when Reporting on Medical Care


From what one reads in newspapers and magazines, it is impossible to determine what journalists think their function in society is. Is it to inform the public or is it to report what they hear from their sources? Someone might say that its both, but if a journalist's sources tell him/her what is false or amounts to nonsense, that journalist would be misinforming the public unless the falsehoods and nonsense were identified. Sadly, that doesn't seem to ever be done.

The Dallas Morning News yesterday printed a piece about healthcare costs under the heading, Raise the burden on you . Its gist is consumers should comparison-shop for treatments. Such comparison shopping is illustrated by citing the example of one Dr. Fickenscher who ate himself into 382 lbs and researched the costs of and then purchased weight-reduction surgery. (I wonder what kind of advice Dr. Fickenscher was giving his overweight and obese patients.) He is quoted as saying, "I was highly engaged in the choice of a surgeon because it was my money. That's what it will be like as consumers have to reach into their own pockets." But will it?

Dr. Fickenscher's surgery was elective and not covered by his health insurance. And even after shopping around, he didn't find anything very cheap. Thirty-thousand dollar elective surgery is not something most Americans can afford.

But tell me how this scenario is going to work when a parent is awakened in the middle of the night by the screams of a child with acute appendicitis? Is the parent going to tell the child to hang on until morning and even longer while papa shops around? And what is the woman who is suddenly told she has breast cancer going to do? Is she going to shop around for the cheapest surgeon she can find? What would such a woman think of a husband who even suggested that she should?

Why didn't the journalist who talked to Dr. Fickenscher ask these questions? He/she probably thought that that wasn't part of his/her function, but had he/she done so, the unworkability of this comparison shopping idea would quickly have been revealed.

Then there is this business about Austria in the piece that is really baffling. Austrians, apparently, pay $5.70 for each prescription, but the true cost of the drug is printed on the package. And the piece contains this sentence, "Austria's experiment with price labels made consumers aware, but because it wasn't their money, it didn't slow spending on drugs."

But I say wait a minute. Do Austrian consumers prescribe their own drugs or do physicians prescribe them? If physicians prescribe them, how could their patients have changed anything? Could they have been expected to say, "Please doctor, prescribe something cheaper?" And if, as is often the case here in America, the patient is asked if he/she is willing to use a generic drug, then all the Austrians have to do is eliminate that choice. So just what does including this material in the piece aim to prove? In America, at least, patients cannot decide for themselves what drugs they are going to use.

The use of Dr. Finkenscher's experience and the Austrian example are so nonsensical, they render this is piece meaningless. But there's even more falsehood!

What is known about the American healthcare system?

First, the Economist publishes at least once every year the healthcare expenditures per capita of most countries. For a number of years that publication has shown that Americans pay more for healthcare per capita than the citizens of any other nation. So it just can't be true that "The consumer share of health costs is higher in Austria." Someone told the journalist who wrote this piece a lie that could easily have been repudiated with just a little bit of research.

Second, the New England Journal of Medicine reported sometime during the present year that Americans, regardless of their income levels, are receiving substandard medical care.

Third, it was recently reported that Americans pay more than twice as much for medical care per capita than the British, and the British are healthier and their healthcare system covers everyone.

So if people are trying to shift the burden of medical care onto the American consumer, it is not being done to improve the healthcare system. It has some other ulterior motive. A good journalist would have dug that out.

I don't know whats up with the government of Austria, but I know what's up with Dr. Finkenscher. He works for an American company trying to screw its employees and their dependents. If he really cared about medical care, he'd be in private practice, making medical care less of a scarce resource. But then again, who would trust a physician who ate himself into a 382 obese monster? Why should anyone trust him or others like him now? (12/4/2006)