Paul Krugman is a Complete and Utter Dolt!

Krugman is Right?

Krugman, normally a hack and propagandist in my view, gets this right: Patients Are Not Consumers.

Patients are not consumers and physicians are not "providers": they are in a professional relationship of extremely personal and intimate content, in which judgement and individualized attention and care are required. Mutual trust and committment are key.

On the other hand, Krugman would like us all standing in lines in government clinics. I think Krugman is a mixed-up person.

On the other hand Krugman misses a key point, in the end it isn't about consumer choice as he alludes to. It is about patient autonomy. The priority for patients to exercise their right to informed consent. The IPAB effectively removes this.

Incredibly, he is suddenly worried about the lowly taxpayer arguing that the folks paying for all of this excess are not insurance agencies, but the American taxpayer, you know the little guy.

Before you start yelling about “rationing” and “death panels,” bear in mind that we’re not talking about limits on what health care you’re allowed to buy with your own (or your insurance company’s) money. We’re talking only about what will be paid for with taxpayers’ money. And the last time I looked at it, the Declaration of Independence didn’t declare that we had the right to life, liberty, and the all-expenses-paid pursuit of happiness.

Well excuse me, ut I will continue to yell about "rationing" and "death panels", particularly when it is the federal government making the ultimate decisions. After all, "it is not what you know, but, who you know."

He also takes time to make the obscene argument that consumer based healthcare has never worked. I would respectively call to his attention to Laser-assisted In Situ Keratomileusis. Affectionately known as LASIK. This is a truly consumer driven medical intervention that has seen its cost decrease significantly and its outcomes improve purely due to consumer demand and technology. I would add plastic surgery, but that may be construed as too obvious.

Lastly, perhaps the most particular affront to my professionalism, is when Mr. Krugman makes the argument that when push comes to shove, when life and death decisions need to be made the advice of an "independent panel of experts" would be superior to that of the doctor on the ground working with the patient and family to come up with a reasonable course of action. This is where the art of medicine comes in and Paul Krugman is asking the medical profession to defer this to a panel? Either he is insane, or he is a dolt. I feel I am being generous by calling him a dolt!

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