Last Monday, I attended a seminar given by Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal, a medical doctor trained at Harvard Medical School that is now the editor in chief of Kaiser Health News reporting on and investigating the American health system. Dr. Rosenthal is particularly interested in what leads to the outrageous price of healthcare in the United States that is not seen in other developed countries. For me, what stood out the most were her examples on the seemingly arbitrary nature of pricing that exists in this country for an identical medical procedure. A surgery at one hospital can cost nearly an order of magnitude higher than an equivalent treatment at another hospital in the same region or even city. While this may not affect someone that is adequately insured to a large degree, for an uninsured American or a visitor of another nation, the exorbitant prices charged with seemingly little justification on the part of the hospital can have shocking consequences. Also of interest to me was how Dr. Rosenthal highlighted the more recent development of “luxury hospitals” that have more in appearance to a high-end hotel than anything else. Are the associated costs passed on to patients being treated in such facilities justification for the additional comfort they provide? Probably not, especially given that a healthcare system should be focused on providing high quality treatment at a more affordable price rather than installing marble floors and purchasing high thread-count bed sheets.

This nation certainly has a major issue with its healthcare system that is not seen in any other developed nation to quite the same extent. The push against more socialist state-based healthcare to a privatized system has seen the development of for-profit healthcare, and the entanglement of hospital profits and big-pharma influences at the expense of the patient is worrisome. Dr. Rosenthal highlighted this excellently while also stating the difficulty of making a large headway toward improvement via new policy due to the controversial nature of healthcare in our political system and the conflicting ideas of many of the potential solutions and inability of our policymakers to compromise to a sufficient degree to make a meaningful change in a timely manner. With any hope, greater patient awareness of their rights and healthcare options will help to push for the demand of a more transparent healthcare system, but if anything can be said for certain, it would be that any lasting change will take much time and perseverance to see any substantial improvement.