In his Triple Aim plan, Berwick laments that US health care is "designed to focus on the acute needs of individual patients." He argues for a different focus, social justice.I'm excited too-who wouldn't be with our future head of Medicare/Medicaid touting wealth redistribution and rationing.Instead of doctors making decisions autonomously in the interest of their own patients, he wants a nationwide plan allocating resources "to anticipate and shape patterns of care for important subgroups." These subgroups -- which can be defined by age, disease affliction or socio-economic status -- should be the "unit of concern," not the individual patient.
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Berwick confessed, "I am a romantic about the NHS. I love it. All I have to do to rediscover the romance is to look at the health care in my own country." He praised the NHS for its central planning, frugality, wealth redistribution and rationing.
And treating people's illnesses? Yeah, that's silly. Why in the world would we want to tend to actual sickness? We should just let a bunch of people who aren't doctors tell us what treatments we deserve. Good thing we passed that Heath Care Bill so we could see what was in it.
Add to Berwick's peculiar brand of dispensing healthcare Ezekiel Emmanual's article in the Jan 30, 2009 Lance, The Allocation of Scarce Medical Resources, and you get a clear picture for justification of allowing children under 3 to die because they don't have personalities yet, and anyone over 50 to die because they're past their prime labor years. These people are frightening.
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