The following piece by me was published in the Concord Monitor over the weekend. It is similar to many of the pieces in my book Granite Grumblings. I apologize for not putting any postings up for a while but my wife has been ill and I have been otherwise occupied. I hope you enjoy this little discussion of reality TV shows and the pharmaceutical industry.
Regards,
Glenn K. Currie
I used to wonder who sponsors a lot of the really dumb
reality shows that seem to assault our senses every night. They seem to prove
that there is a bottomless pit of gullibility and inanity in this country. And
then I realized that these are on the air, at least partially, as another
negative side effect of a healthcare system run amok. People will believe
anything if it is said enough, and the pharmaceutical industry has figured out
that the watchers of reality shows are the perfect targets for their products.
This is possible of course as a result of the huge amount of
money now sloshing around in our healthcare system and the total confusion
surrounding its administration. Anytime you put the IRS in charge of a system
you can pretty much guarantee that no one is really going to understand how it
works. These are the same people who gave us a tax system that has grown like a
giant amoeba and went past rational comprehension about forty years ago. And
then we let the bureaucrats loose to write regulations for a 2000 page bill
that nobody understood or even read when it was passed. Some of the results
have been huge increases in costs for some, loss of caregivers for others, and
numerous cases of double billing, double dipping and fraud by patients,
healthcare professionals and insurance companies. Of special note here are the
pharmaceutical companies who are making a fortune off this stuff based on all
the ads they run for totally obscure drugs.
In the space of a few
hours last night I tracked all the drug ads that were on prime time (mostly
reality) TV.. Here are a few examples: Movantek, Xaralto, Trulicity, Prevnair
13, Prevagen D, Invokana, Stolana, and Xifaxin. There are more but you get my
point. I defy anyone to tell me what all of these do. If you can, you watch too
much TV. The only thing these drugs have in common are a stream of side effects
that scare the hell out of people. Yet somehow consumers, who don’t have to pay
for them, run to their doctors demanding they get them and their doctors, who
don’t have to pay for them, prescribe them. Oh yeah, and the rest of us do pay
for them in higher health costs, the profits from which support reality TV and
lots of other slightly less inane offerings.
As a result of “The Affordable Care Act”, we are throwing an
expected 20,000,000(?) more patients onto the roles, but we are cutting the pay
of our primary caregivers and demanding that they see more patients per hour.
We are also demanding huge new levels of record keeping (presumably so we can
keep track of how much money is being stolen from the system). This in turn
requires huge new investments in hardware and software by hospitals, caregivers,
insurance companies, etc. Not surprisingly, out of all this comes lots of
frustration from the primary caregivers who are the glue that holds the system
together. We are seeing many retire rather than deal with a lower standard of
care, longer hours, a diminishing relationship with patients and lots of time
on computers doing data entry. God bless the survivors but I am sure some are
feeling that this isn’t what they signed up for. But take heart, we are also
getting to see the huge employment boom and advantages of more bureaucrats in
Washington. These genii are doing their level best to add to the confusion with
an onslaught of new regulations.
An example of the absolute absurdity in the level and detail
of the new regs is the expansion of new codes which will be demanded in the
forthcoming ICD 10 Code Book.
The number of codes is increasing from 13,000 to an
anticipated 68,000. And here are some of the examples that will now be tracked
(source is an April 2015 report from the Frugal Nurse website):
1)
R46.1
Bizarre personal appearance
2)
W61.62XA Struck
by a duck
3)
Z63.1
Problems in relationships with in-laws
4)
W22.2XD Walked
into lamppost again
5)
W55.41XA Bitten
by a pig
6)
V97.33XD Sucked
into a jet engine
7)
Y92.250
Injured in an opera house
8)
Y93.D1
Injured when knitting or crocheting
9)
V95.42XA Forced
landing of a spacecraft injuring an occupant
10) T71.231D Asphyxiation due to being trapped in a
discarded refrigerator, accidental
I am sure there is also one for when this last item is “on
purpose” and there is probably an individual bureaucrat assigned to each of
these codes.
All of this puts an additional reporting load on the
providers and insurers in the system and ultimately costs the insurance payer
more money. As with everything else the government seems to do, we are taking
things to absurd levels. Perhaps we will soon have a reality TV show on
Washington bureaucrats as they sit in their cubicles and toss around ideas for
new regulations. I can only hope that there will soon be a new code for
“bureaucrat falling out of chair while laughing at idiots that pay him or her
to do this stuff”.
But not to worry, all of this money going into the pockets
of pharmaceutical companies and others pretty much guarantees that we will see
lots more advertising support for the kinds of brainless programs that will
bring them an audience. The survival of “Divorced Housewives of LA” or some
similar programs should be pretty much assured as long as all of us pay the
bill. And the bureaucrats will trail along right behind to make sure we
continue to build a system that defies understanding.
No comments:
Post a Comment