Stable But Stranded: Why Successful Treatment in a Failed System Isn’t Enough
The following essay is by Dhruv Khullar, a fourth year medical student at the Yale School of Medicine and a contestant in the 2012 Costs of Care Essay Contest. By the time I met her, Ms. Jacob had been in the hospital for 202 days, 15 hours, and 38 minutes. 39 minutes. 40 minutes. Starting work on a floor that prided itself on delivering comprehensive, efficient care, I studied the computer monitor describing patient lengths of stay, wondering why this woman had been here 25 times longer than the average patient – and counting. Was she sicker? Had she developed a particularly rare,...
Read MoreCost containment and unfinished business
While the contentious healthcare reform bill enables access to health insurance for 32 million Americans, what about costs and efficient healthcare delivery? The often-heard criticism of the 10-year, 1 trillion healthcare reform plan is that it simply does not do enough to rein in the cost of treatments. According to a government report released in February this year, healthcare spending grew to a record of 17.3 % of the GDP in 2009, $ 134 billion more than 2008, marking the largest one-year jump in its share of the economy since the government started keeping such records half a century...
Read MoreHealthcare Reform & End-of-life Costs
When President Obama’s chief budget deputy Peter Orzag announced the stimulus bill (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009), he mentioned that the U.S. spends $700 billion each year on medical tests that don’t help patients get healthier. Policy analysts have long known that much of this seemingly wasteful spending occurs during emotionally challenging moments at the end of life. We often are willing to spend the most on those who are the sickest–even when it is unlikely to make them better. Given the highly sensitive situations involved, most politicians have been...
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