With all the debate going on about the implications of the new health care bill, an obvious fact continues to be ignored; a "pink elephant in the room" you might say. I don't know if I can state this clearly enough just one way, so I will make a few stabs at it.
It may seem like I'm stating the obvious, but please hear me out. Health care is too expensive, because we are paying too much for something we don't need. I'm not talking about crisis intervention: medical care that saves lives. I'm talking about the drugs we take that are not only unnecessary, but harmful. Not only unnecessary and harmful, but EXPEN$IVE. For example, did you know that when the makers of the popular acid blocker Prilosec lost their patent, they altered the formula slightly, got a new patent and named it Nexium? Now, you might be taking Nexium thinking it is superior to the lowly over-the-counter Prilosec 'OTC', but are not getting any more bang for the buck at all? And, please don't say "but my insurance pays for it"!
Why are insurance premiums so high? The insurance industry will say it's because nearly everyone with health insurance files a claim. But, I submit to you that the basic underlying reason for this is the amount of drugs we take. The U.S. spends the most of any country on health care. It spends nearly twice as much per capita compared with 2nd highest Canada. Can you remember when there were no prescription drug commercials on television? I'll bet you've heard the names of all the popular drugs for such maladies as erectile dysfunction, cholesterol, diabetes, anxiety and depression, and osteoporosis. Do you think you could recognize those drug names before they became TV ads? I submit that most of those drugs wouldn't have come to market without the power of this marketing venue.
I'm not saying that you don't need any of the drugs you're taking. I am saying you may be taking one or more medications that have little or no science behind them. Have you ever heard of "junk science"? Have you ever heard the phrase: "There are lies, damn lies, and STATISTICS"? I had two meetings with a young medical doctor a few years ago to discuss differences and similarities among our professions: medicine and chiropractic. He stated that the pharmaceutical reps (aka detail men) would bring in marketing info on their latest drugs showing their superiority in the form of various pie charts and graphs. This doctor explained that he could quickly see that the information was biased, skewed and designed to exaggerate the actual results of the clinical trials IN FAVOR OF THE DRUG THEY WERE SELLING. Surprised? Here's the scary part. The presentation was always made after the doctors and staff were treated to a complimentary lunch brought in by these drug reps. The young doctor went on to tell me that, for ethical reasons, he had made it a practice to bring his own lunch, and thereby not feel pressured to prescribe something he knew 1) wasn't as effective 2) had more or riskier side effects and 3) was MORE EXPENSIVE.
Here's another go-around. You may not have heard the name Steven Pressfield, but you may be familiar with a screenplay he wrote that was made into the movie "The Legend of Bagger Vance." Pressfield wrote a book entitled The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle. In it, he describes his days working for a New York ad agency in which his boss told he and his collegues: Invent a disease. Create a disease and we will sell the cure." That's right, you may have been diagnosed as having a disease or disorder that was first conceived in an ad agency brainstorming session. With the depressed economy, drug companies are looking harder than ever to find more marketable conditions in which to exploit. Ely Lilly and Co. doesn't just want you going to your doctor with the question: "How am I doing doctor?", they want you going to that visit armed with the very specific question: "Do you think I need Sarafem for my Pre Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder?"!
By the way, Sarafem is nothing more than Prozac with a new marketable disorder. "But my insurance pays for it" you say. Do you pay regular monthly premiums? If so, then it's actually you, me and everyone else that pays for it. It's just on the installment plan.
I welcome your comments.
No comments:
Post a Comment