Profit-driven companies and private partnerships have proven once again they cannot solve the U.S. health care system’s problems.
Or maybe it’s just more profitable to leave things alone.
Texans spent the weekend hitting redial or refresh to get an appointment for a dose of COVID-19 vaccine. They discovered a complicated, disjointed, illogical and unfair process that perfectly reflects how all health care is delivered in this country.
Begin with the pharmaceutical companies struggling to produce enough doses because they’ve outsourced production. Move on to the federal government, which relies on private logistics companies for distribution during their busiest season.
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Remember, also, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for vaccination protocols that many states, including Texas, decided to ignore. Then throw a little shade on the Texas Department of State Health Services, which oversees in-state distribution, but allowed every city and county to choose its own adventure.
In a classic demonstration of buck-passing, Gov. Greg Abbott took to Twitter declaring: “A significant portion of vaccines distributed across Texas might be sitting on hospital shelves as opposed to being given to vulnerable Texans.”
To which, health care providers replied with a weary sigh.
“The state needs to step up and ensure that there’s good communication and that people know there’s going to be an adequate supply of vaccines, and they need to get that supply of vaccines into the community now, and not later,” said Tony Dasher, a professor at the Feik School of Pharmacy at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio.
Peruse the state’s almost useless database of vaccination centers to understand that knowing where the state delivered vaccines two days ago does little to help someone get inoculated tomorrow.
Lastly, do not forget the front-line health care workers, most of whom never have seen a mass vaccination program, let alone organized one. Some vaccination sites are using Eventbrite’s online ticketing system to set appointments.
Almost anyone could have predicted the jammed phone lines, flooded email inboxes, glitchy websites and long lines.
People inexperienced in navigating the American system are shocked by the dysfunction. Surely, they declaim, the United States of America should have something better than this disjointed mess to get something as basic as a shot in the arm!
Anyone who’s suffered a serious illness or injury is not surprised by the chaos. What the entire nation is witnessing is what sick people experience every day. National health care systems in Israel and the United Kingdom are looking really good about now.
The arms-length partnership between federal and state authorities, insurers, pharmaceutical companies, management firms, doctors, hospitals and employers seems designed to bilk high profits out of desperate patients. When a public health emergency strikes, it all falls apart.
Polls show most Americans despise the current system and want change. So do three of the most powerful businessmen in the world, who lead three of the nation’s most powerful companies. Three years ago, they set about overhauling the system.
I applauded Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Berkshire-Hathaway’s Warren Buffett and JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon when they co-founded what would become Haven Health, promising to provide quality care for a reasonable price. The three companies with 1.5 million employees hoped to boost profits, the U.S. economy and America’s health.
“The ballooning costs of health care act as a hungry tapeworm on the American economy,” Buffett said at the time. The joint venture planned to boost access to primary care, simplify insurance claims and negotiate more efficient systems.
Practically every serious observer knows what needs to be done to lower costs and improve outcomes: More primary care and public health to prevent illness instead of expensive specialist treatments. More incentives for providers to lower costs rather than run up fees. Elimination of unnecessary middlemen.
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The challenge always has been convincing the different segments to give up some of their profits.
Haven threw in the towel and started disbanding on Monday, according to CNBC, which broke the news. The entrenched health care industry overwhelmed yet another effort to eliminate fraud, waste, abuse and profiteering.
Pandemic-weary Americans should contemplate what it means when three of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs cannot find a market-based solution to our daft health care system.
Only a groundswell of public fury will persuade elected officials to overhaul health care. Our system’s clumsy failures in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and supplying vaccinations should be enough to trigger popular rage.
Lobbyists and politicians, though, will do as they always do: use politics to divide us. Because if we are not united, they know they do not have to fix anything. But we should never let a crisis go to waste.
Tomlinson writes commentary about business, economics and policy.
twitter.com/cltomlinson
chris.tomlinson@chron.com
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America’s health care system flails again, focused on profit over patients - Houston Chronicle
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