{"id":1228,"date":"2020-05-21T23:02:35","date_gmt":"2020-05-22T06:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1228"},"modified":"2020-05-21T23:02:35","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T06:02:35","slug":"health-care-slowdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1228","title":{"rendered":"Health Care Slowdown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Isn\u2019t it ironic that one of the largest economic sectors\ncontributing to the Covid-19 recession is health care? Almost half of the\nmassive first quarter US GDP drop comes from losses in health care spending. Just\nwhen the \u201cbest\nhealth care system in the world<\/a>\u201d is needed to kick into high gear, to be on\nits toes, agile, responsive, it slows to half speed. Are you surprised?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your response to this news might be foretold in your\nresponse to the above phrase in quotes:\u201d the best health care system\u2026\u201d. Nearly\n70% of Republicans agree with that statement, while only 30% of Democrats do.\nThe partisan divide in this country pivots on just what we expect of health\ncare. We need some alignment of expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many analysts<\/a>\nconsidered healthcare a \u201cprotected sector\u201d in a recession, since they saw demand\nas inelastic, and funding stable. In the 2008 financial sector driven\nrecession, health care spending stayed pretty constant while people were losing\ntheir jobs and homes. Maybe that gave some heath care investors the confidence\nthey needed. Indeed, health care spending in the US has grown to be almost a\nfifth of our GDP. What bubble? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I doubt many of these analysts had spent a weekend covering\nthe ER in a small Idaho hospital. For every broken hip or heart attack that\nneeded those emergent services, there were ten rashes and colds that could have\nbeen treated in the office on Monday, or might have gotten better with some\nwatchful waiting. But the way we have built our health care economy, the way we\npay for these sometimes-vital services, requires all those runny noses and\nworrisome rashes to keep the money flowing so the nurses and doctors will be\nthere when the car crash victim rolls in. With this pandemic isolation, the\ntrue elasticity of health care demand has been exposed. Will we go back to the\ngood old days? Do we want to? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The job losses in health care are tragic as are the deaths\nfrom this novel virus. But so is wasteful effort. We have an opportunity now to\nbuild the system we want. But first, we\u2019ll have to be honest with ourselves\nabout just what we want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most people want what they want when they want it, and\nhealthcare is no exception. Politicians know what we Americans want from\nhealthcare. We have had two Presidents in a row promise us just that. Remember\nObama: \u201cYou can keep your doctor\u2026\u201d? And now Trump: \u201cIf you want a test you can\nget a test…\u201d. Fools love empty promises. Let\u2019s stop being fools. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hospitals nation-wide are feeling the cash crunch as\nelective procedures are postponed and emergency rooms waiting rooms are empty.\nSmall hospitals, always closest to the margin are looking at buying red ink by\nthe barrel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This last weekend, around a fire pit, safely distanced, I\nheard a novel suggestion from a friend. He and I are in the same high risk,\nolder male age category. He suggested, to save our local, small-town hospital\nwe set up a schedule amongst our similar risk factor friends. Each of us, on\nseparate days would go to the ER and complain of chest pain. We\u2019d get the\nfull-bore treatment, labs, EKG, maybe even spend a night there. The hospital\ncould bill Medicare for our services and the local institution would be saved.\nWe all laughed, even though it\u2019s not really funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The years of growth in health care spending in the US has long\nbeen held to be unsustainable<\/a>.\nThe causes, the blame for this predicament are worth\nunderstanding<\/a> if we expect to turn it around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sincerely don\u2019t recommend setting up a chest pain schedule\nwith your older buddies to save your local hospital. But I do ask you to start\nhaving some considerate conversations about just what healthcare should be in\nthis country. It\u2019s way past time we made the effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Isn\u2019t it ironic that one of the largest economic sectors contributing to the Covid-19 recession is health care? Almost half of the massive first quarter US GDP drop comes from losses in health care spending. Just when the \u201cbest health … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1228"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1228"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1231,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1228\/revisions\/1231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}