09. Is its parent directory writable by the server? Health Care Rationing or Just Common Sense?

November 25, 2009 by Warren McInteer, Writer | 2 Comments |

The media continues to produce bombastic reports regarding health care reform full of scare tactics from both sides. One of the buzz words used to scare people is the word – RATIONING. This word has been used to describe negative aspects of the UK National Health System (NHS) system (or the proposed “public” system in the US); and the word implies the perils of such a system–as if a health care czar sits in the coliseum giving a thumbs up or a thumbs down on medical procedures based on what side of the bed he got out of. I have a one word retort which the British might use to refute such allegations: BOLLOCKS.

You might call it rationing, but I call it common sense and logical decision making based on costs and benefits for health care procedures. And I have a perfect example of a person who has experienced rationing in the UK and lived to tell about it – Me.

My Personal Health Care Story

As I have noted in my four previous articles at Demockracy.com, my view on this subject is based on my direct experience with the health systems both in the US and Europe. Unlike most pundits on this subject, I have worked and lived in the UK and the US and experienced both health care systems first hand, as an employee, as an executive, as a corporate board member, as an owner, and, most importantly, as a patient. Four years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer while living in the UK and received treatment and advice from both the US and UK systems. The differences in the way these two systems treated my disease were telling – and at the end of the day the UK’s “rationing” system appeared to do everything the US plan offered at a fraction of the cost. Let me explain the detail.

In 2005, I was diagnosed with tonsil cancer while living in the UK. After my initial diagnoses and shock, I sat down with my UK doctors and discussed the treatment plan offered by the NHS. The proposed plan essentially consisted of the following:

1. A surgery procedure to cut the from my tonsil area and a major neck dissection that would cut tumor surrounding tissue from the tumor and lymph nodes from my neck and shoulder area.

2. Four weeks of rest to recuperate from the surgery.

3. Then, I would undergo seven weeks of focused radiotherapy to further eradicate pesky cancer cells in my neck and throat region.

4. And finally, in concert with the radiotherapy, I would receive several doses of chemotherapy over the same seven-week period to further blast away any cancer cells that had invaded my body.

All of that seemed perfectly reasonable to me; but to make doubly sure I was getting the correct treatment, I flew to the US to get a second opinion from a highly respected leading specialty hospital in New York. I was somewhat intrigued that this second opinion and treatment of the cancer were essentially the same as the NHS program. Intrigued, because I was still under the impression that US health care was better–different, and that I would be offered a different option, perhaps more expensive, but perhaps with better outcomes. But, no, the diagnosis and treatment plan were almost identical.

I followed the treatment plan in the UK – surgery, chemo, radio, all provided free of charge by the NHS. I have dual citizenship in the UK and the US and had lived in the UK for six years, so this was all perfectly within the rules of the NHS. And after 12 weeks of treatment, I was weakened and tired but satisfied that my doctors and I had done all that I could do to combat the cancer. So up to this point, there was essentially zero difference in the way a US or UK doctor would have treated me.

Now came the aftercare plan. I was told by both US and UK doctors that the tumor had a 50% chance of reappearing – a percentage high enough to cause me and my family many, many sleepless nights. Doctors on both sides of the Atlantic agreed that vigorous aftercare monitoring was needed to check to see if the cancer was to reappear. In the US, the doctors suggested that the best way to monitor a reappearance of the cancer was a series of PET /CT scans; they would use the latest and greatest technology to peer inside my body to see if the cancer had returned. They suggested a PET/CT scan once every six months for two years and then perhaps once per year until year 5. In all, this would mean 7-8 PET/CT scans, which at about $4,000 per scan would mean a total cost of about $30,000. That sounded like a lot of money, but, hey, – it was my life we are talking about, and there was a 50% chance of the tumor coming back so it sounded like a no-brainer to spend the money and get my ticket out of Camp Cancer.

I then met with my UK doctor and explained the proposed US treatment plan for aftercare. I still remember my doctor giving a wry smile that suggested there was a simpler way – (the smile also of someone who does not have a bottomless pit of money and funding). She agreed with the need for close monitoring to see if the cancer reappeared, but then explained her treatment plan to me, which was decidedly low tech. For the first year, she would have me back in her office every 60 days to perform a thorough physical examination. She explained that if indeed the tumor did recur, that 99 times out of 100 the tumor would reappear in the neck or throat area. Since this area is relatively exposed and easy to see (down the throat with a scope) or feel (through touching and feeling the neck area), she would be able to see or feel the tumor before it gets to the size of one centimeter (maybe even a bit less, depending on its location) – which is about the same size by which a PET/CT scan can detect a tumor. Furthermore, she explained, that although the PET/CT scans can be a very useful tool, they often can show false positives (white spots on the scan that turn out not to be malignant tumors), and these false positives will just lead to more aggravation and stress for both the patient and the doctor (and also more costs as the health system has to perform more tests to determine that a false positive is indeed false). Not totally convinced, I asked more questions about PET/CT scans and their use; my UK doctor then told me that if the initial tumor had been on an internal organ (the lung or pancreas for example), then the PET /CT scan would be a very useful tool, because if the tumor reappeared, it would be internal and not be in a place where a doctor’s visual or tactile examination could reveal its presence.

Upon further questioning regarding the benefits of the PET/CT scan, the UK doctor did accept that if in the 1 out of 100 chance that the tumor did reappear in another part of the body (not the neck or throat, but an organ such as the liver, the lung, or the pancreas), her physical inspection of the neck and throat area would not likely find the tumor and the PET / CT would give the patient an earlier indication that trouble had returned. However, she also noted that if the tumor reappeared via PET/CT scan in the liver or the pancreas, that this early detection does not usually lead to a better outcome for the patient. Unfortunately, if the cancer is found in another organ in the body, this would probably mean the cancer had metastasized and was spreading throughout the body. The sad reality of this situation is that one can run all the tests and scans in the world, but in all probability the patient has terminal cancer, and now the question becomes not if but when – a sad conclusion, but medicine and health care do not always have happy endings.

Now I am generally a skeptic on such matters; and I was still operating under the mindset that the US health care is better than UK health care. But I listened to what the UK doctor said, and I believed her. After all, the UK’s public system had not skimped one bit when it came to the surgery, chemo, and radiotherapy – these are expensive procedures, but the benefit they provide is very demonstrable and intuitive. But intuitively, the expensive aftercare offered by the US seemed to be a lot of work, effort, and technology for little result. Indeed, I had “found” the initial tumor when I felt a “lump” on my neck about the size of a pea and it was relatively easy to feel once you knew what you were looking for.

The Costs of Health Care

And, being the accountant that I am, I did the math on the treatment plans. The US and UK aftercare plans were similar in terms of trips to the doctors. However, to recap,the US plan included 7-8 PET/CT scans which would cost about $30,000. My UK doctor said that 99 times out of 100 a doctor’s visual/physical inspection would find the tumor as soon as the PET/CT scan. But one time out of 100 the scan would find the tumor that had reappeared at some different part of the body – but even then, in most cases, the likely outcome for the patient was terminal cancer, and the doctors could prolong life for a bit, but the patient would be left with a similar outcome – terminal cancer and death. So for our sample of 100 patients in the US who opt for regular PET/CT scans in their aftercare treatment plan, they and their doctors will certainly feel better about all the money and technology that is being spent to combat the disease. However, these 100 patients in the US will cost the system about $3 million ($30,000 times the 100 patient sample = $3 million); and this extra $3 million will provide little or no benefit when compared with the low tech, low cost approach.

Now let’s go back to the US doctor who is presented with this argument; let’s say he or she agrees with the argument and uses the British, low-tech and low-cost method. Two years later, 50 of his or her 100 patients have cancer (50% recurrence rate in both populations) – of those 50 maybe 2 or 3 or 4 think they have been treated wrongly and decide to sue for malpractice. They engage a lawyer and spend a lot of money on courts and legal proceedings. And ultimately the doctor has to stand in front of 12 jurors while a litigation lawyer – highly practiced in creating courtroom drama – will try to make the doctor look like a villain. Undoubtedly, during testimony, the lawyer will pointedly ask the doctor this question: “So you decided not to use the PET/CT, a technologically advanced procedure designed to identify cancer at early stages, and you chose not to perform this test to save the company $3,000 – and because of your penny pinching treatment plan, the patient did not get all the tests available to medical science, and now my client is dying of cancer because you would not allow the PET/CT scan?” These words may not be exactly true, but the lawyer is very good at bending and stating the facts in such a way to garner sympathy for his client. (And who really can blame him; he is simply doing his job.)

So the US doctor contemplates the legal scenario above … and guess what – he or she decides to order the PET/CT scan, and by the way, when he/she orders the scan he/she also gets to charge $500 to the patient to read and interpret the scan report – just another little incentive to do more not less. But who can blame him/her: he/she correctly justifies decisions as helping to save lives, reducing threats of litigation, making patients happier, and making a bit more money.

Back in the UK, the doctor has little or no liability from litigation, for a whole series of reasons. The most relevant is that the NHS has done the cost/benefit analysis and clearly sets treatment protocol based on this logical cost/benefit analysis. The doctor did it by the book, so there is little chance of liability.

And, finally, let’s look at is from the patients point of view. I imagine many may accept the logic of this argument. However, when it comes down to individual decisions on whether to do the PET/CT scans, many will still opt for doing the tests – nothing wrong with that – it’s a free country. But what the patient should decide is whether he or she is prepared to spend $30,000 of his or her own money to do these tests. I personally do not want to spend my tax dollars on a government run system that spends this kind of money for tests or programs with little or no benefit. So the patient can bankroll this $30,000 option by either dipping into his or her savings or opting into a fancy, pay-all, private insurance plan with all the bells and whistles that will pay for such luxuries. The cost of such an insurance plan will undoubtedly cost several thousand dollars more per year, but you get what you pay for.

Now back to the math and the big picture of US health care. In our little sample of 100 throat cancer patients, the US system spends approximately $3 million more than the low-tech approach. Across the country, in the US, about 30,000 people per year are diagnosed with tonsil/throat cancer. So expanding our sample from 100 to 30,000 means the US spends perhaps $900 million on PET/CT scans for throat and neck cancer patients per year, and this extra money provides little if any benefit in patient outcomes. $900 million is therefore largely unnecessarily spent in the US for this one little disease category. The American doctor often opts for the more expensive, more technical solution, not so much for the welfare of the patient, but so he or she is seen as doing as much as he/she can do when dealing with patients who are ill. This makes the patient happy, the doctor happy, the health care companies rich, and feeds into the common misperception in US medicine that more invasive care equates to better care.

$900 million – almost $1 billion spent with no recognizable benefit for one condition. And as the saying goes, “a billion here and a billion there–pretty soon we are talking real money.” And this one economic example, repeated over and over for other disease categories is certainly one of the major reasons that the US spends twice as much per capita on health care as most other developed countries with no demonstrable benefit to the population.

Rationing of health care services – bring it on. Let’s stop spending money on health care treatments which do not provide a real benefit. More money does not always mean better care.

You might call it rationing, but I call it common sense–making logical , informed decisions about health care procedures is an achievable goal that can make health care affordable to all Americans. So let’s look behind the scare tactics and buzz words and do what is right and allow for Affordable Health Care for all Americans.