Some rationing would be good for us

While critics of health care reform are fond of denouncing “rationing” as one of its evils, anybody who has ever dealt with a health insurance company knows perfectly well that rationing takes place right now. But here’s another common-sense idea no one wants to admit: Some “rationing” would be a good idea.
For example, is an old guy really sick and in need of a pill because he can’t, ah, perform sexually like he used to? Is an older woman in need of a drug because she has to go to the bathroom more frequently?

As Consumer Reports on Health points out in a recent issue, Big Pharma has trained consumers to go to the doctor and ask for a pill, even when they’re not sick.

The goal of drug advertising is often “to blur the distinction between the lower end of normal and the beginning of disease,” says Richard Kravitz, MD, a professor of internal medicine at the Univeristy of California, Davis. . “It increases the use of drugs among people who really need them, but it also increases prescriptions among people in that gray zone.”

Physicians who are fast to pull out the prescription pad contribute to the problem — as do pharmaceutical companies that pitch new treatments, doctor groups that prematurely embrace the news tests and treatments, and media outlets that hype the problems. But consumers play a role, too, by being too eager for quick fixes.

The problem goes beyond increased health care costs, although that’s a huge problem. Overuse of antibiotics has already led to more strains of drug resistant superbugs. That’s a very dangerous trend that could get worse in years to come.

Yet, there are still people who believe that everytime they feel a little under the weather, the doctor ought to give them a pill. And too many doctors, wishing to keep the paying customers happy, go along with it.