Another poll, on effects of the profit motive on medical care

[LeftishBrit]

This is a question I brought up in Kerry4Kerry's questionnaire thread, but I am now posting it as a poll.

Which of the following is nearest to your view?


The profit motive in medical care...

[TZ]

1. Here's where I think profit hurts

1) It causes insurance companies to play doctor and use monetary reasons to decide health (personally I think its the insurance industry in this country that is the biggest villan)
2) It discourages research into Orphan Diseases..diseases that while terrible, don't effect a lot of people so would not be a big money maker for a company.
3) It discourgages novel research as being too risky of an investment for many companies. Only the very small startups or the very large companies with good revenue streams can afford to do something different that may not work. IE companies will stay with proven money makers like Viagra, Rogaine, instead of investing in new oncological drugs...

[cosmik debris]

3. That's all true

It is interesting that the difference in our perspective is based on where we interacted with the system.

I was on the hardware side, while you are on the chemistry/biology side. And, of course, you are a patient, and I seldom need medical care.

I think that shows that there is more than one correct answer.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

6. In regards to Viagra.

It seems to be a favorite whipping boy among lots of people. Viagra was designed and tested to treat a rare disease more common in women than men known as pulmonary arterial hypertension and angina pectoris in people who didn't respond to nitroglycerin. It is still used to treat PAH, wasn't found to be effective on angina pectoris but test subjects who had erectile dysfunction noted a positive side effect, hard to blame the drug company for trying to make their R & D money back. I hope it's still available when my back injury renders me useless in the nether regions.

David

[cosmik debris]

2. Other.

It is good, but it must be regulated and supervised by watchdogs.

Consider Soviet style medicine where there was no profit motive. Did they invent the MRI, the CT scanner, 4D cardiac ultrasound? What advances can they claim in Nuc-med or chemotherapy?

The coolest devices you see in any hospital were brought to the market by the private sector. Taking the profit motive out would be likely to give us Soviet style technology.

Is that what we want.

We are already in a stiff competition with a vibrant medical device industry in Europe. If we take the profit motive out of that industry, Europe will become the unquestioned leader in the field.

Is that what we want?

[LeftishBrit]

5. To clarify...

I was referring more to the profit motive in health *policy* and decision-making, rather than the initial R&D.

While I support regulation and a government contribution to funding of R&D, I don't support complete Soviet-style government monopoly over it, mainly because governments tend to have vested interests of their own in cost-cutting and NOT encouraging sufficient innovation.

[cosmik debris]

7. The closer you get to the patient

The less desirable the profit motive becomes.

It lends itself to a "general to specific" logical fallacy.

You need a profit motive to get the MRI onto the market and into the hospital. But you should NOT allow the profit motive to override the doctor's decision to perform the MRI study.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. I work for a non-profit health education foundation

that has a demonstration clinic. We get a lot of folks in that pay what they can for their care. We have a found to pay for lab work for those who can't afford the labs. We operate on a shoestring, but the work is satisfying because we are helping people feel better without ripping them off.