When will you Pronounce the Solution to the Healthcare System
Stanley Feld M.D., FACP,MACE
I received the follow email a few days ago.
Stanley,
These episodes are very good. To whom are they written? Public at large, I suppose. I am waiting for the final scenario in which you pronounce the solution!
Anonymous
Unfortunately, the solution is not a sound bite! It can not be pronounced. The solution must to be understood in the context of the problems evolution. My goal is to activate the public. The people need to demand control over their insurance dollar as part of the solution.
I believe strongly in individual responsibility and individual freedom. Individual responsibility and individual choice will be the driving force to the Repair of the Healthcare System. An activated public willing to put some skin in the game, and pressure on the politicians, hospitals, and insurance companies will fix the system. I need a large number of people to bang pots and make some noise that is focused toward a proper solution. No one will be interested in doing this until they know what has happen to their most valuable resource, the healthcare system, over the past 30 years. I suggest one reread the Preamble and the Introduction to the blog for hints about the solution.
Unfortunately, the healthcare system is almost beyond repair. When it collapses everyone will suffer. However, the people who will suffer most will be the patients and the medical profession, the system most important stakeholders.
This blog is an attempt to get patients and physicians motivated to step out and demand the proper solution. A patch that will benefit facilitator stakeholders will not do. Patches have been tried in the past and have failed. I plan to outline what patients, future patients and physicians need to do with explicit instructions down the line.
However, I need a posse’. You can help by emailing my site address www.stanleyfeldmdmace.typepad.com to all the people you know and ask them to subscribe. I want to get people (physicians, patients, and future patients to read the blog, and buy into the solution. Our most precious possession is our health. We need to protect it. Barriers of Repair to the Healthcare System have developed, because all of the major stakeholders had to adjust to changes in the healthcare system in the past. All the stakeholders are good people just trying to make a living. However, their adjustments have led to a misalignment of incentives and further dysfunction.
Politicians look at numbers and public opinion. I call it the “Fax machine phenomenon”. One day no one had a fax machine and by the end of the month everyone had a fax machine.
Since all the stakeholders are in pain because of the dysfunction in the healthcare system, I am writing to everyone that could be affected by the system. Remember, I said no one ever ask the practicing physician or practicing patient how to fix the system.
I know your question is on the mind of many others reading the blog. Many want the solution so they can be the judge. As judge you can accept or reject the proposed solution without necessarily understanding the facts behind the solution. Most people understand we are the victim of a broken healthcare system. The usual comment made when I express my goal to fix the system is “Good Luck”. There is a lack of engagement by the only people who can really fix the system, the people affected presently and in the future by the system.
This can only happen if the people understand how the system got into this pickle. Only then will they become actively engaged in getting us out of the pickle. I will try to develop the story quickly so we can concentrate on the solution. I believe in any problem you must know how you got there in the first place. Only then can you know where to go. I also believe that people have tremendous power; they simply need leadership, inspiration and hope.
The blogosphere can democratize ideas to a great number of people and produce constructive action. I would appreciate if you would help.
Please send a blind copy to everyone in your email address book who would be interested in becoming engaged in the solution. .
Thanks for you kind praise. I hope you will help.
Stanley
Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE
www.stanleyfeldmdmace.typepad.com
Walt Carter • June 24, 2006
Dr. Feld, I believe you’re on the right path. By getting a posse rounded up and engaged in the hunt for a solution through sharing of information, insights, and observations of constraints, we may be able to get the political ‘help’ needed to effect change. Are you working with Newt’s group here in Atlanta (http://www.healthtransformation.net)?
Dear Walt
I know Newt and he knows me. I have presented my ideas on Disease Management to Newt when he was speaker of the house. His response was this is a “BIG IDEA” .
He was then at a meeting at Human Resource meeting and Information technology meeting at Delta Airlines a few years later, after he left congress. He loved the presentation. He invited me to visit him at his office in Washington. We went over the presentation in great detail. It was still a BIG IDEA. He told me he has quoted me often. However, I have never had followup from him nor have never been able to make contact with him since.
I have sent him the blog information. However, I suspect he has a fortress of people creating blockades between him and the ordinary people like me, and they do not know me. This information has probably never gotten on his screen.
If you know him please direct him to the site. I am convinced the concepts will excite him. He theoretically understands the problem about the dysfunction of the healthcare system in my view.
I am trying to get the main stakeholders, the patients and future patients, in mass to appeal to people like Newt. Newt could help greatly. However, it is going to take people power to turn this boat around. Coming from one person, the BIG IDEAS that will be coming will have little impact.
If you can help, it will be greatly appreciated
Stanley Feld M.D.,MACE