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.

On Monday, Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal came to Cornell to talk about her experiences reporting on healthcare and its many problems. Trained as a doctor, Dr. Rosenthal became a journalist for The New York Times. As a journalist, she covered many stories relating to healthcare and health policy. Her talk mostly focused on the problems in the American healthcare system. She discussed how arbitrary the costs of healthcare can be. For example, she mentioned how a drug that combined two products in one cost much more than both of the drugs separately. Therefore, patients that were prescribed the joint drug paid much more unnecessarily. In another story, she described the experience of a man who had a minor injury but ended up going to the hospital in an ambulance. Because the hospital did not know the extent of the injury, they had dispatched an unnecessary trauma team to meet the ambulance. Even though the patient did not need the team, he was still billed an exorbitant amount for it.

This talk really made me reflect upon the problems in the field I hope to go into. There seems to be a paradox that in a field that quite literally deals with life or death, some people can’t afford to chose life. That being said, doctors and other healthcare professionals usually go through rigorous training and schooling that takes a lot of time and money. They should be justly compensated for that. However, no one should be in a situation in which they can’t pay for a treatment that could save their lives. Hopefully, with efforts from citizens, state governments and the national government will be able to balance these two sides so that the healthcare system as well as the people it serves will be able to be supported.

We’ve known that the cost of medicine, particularly in the US, is steep. But, Dr. Rosenthal’s talk this week showed just how steep that price is. Through a number of examples she gleaned from her time as a reporter for the New York Times, she demonstrated to the audience how the financials of medicine could be so unfair and potentially life-threatening. It’s interesting to hear how the US got to this point and even more so how it could be amended (she mentioned some form of a single-payer system would likely arise).

As a pre-med student, I’m conflicted between balancing the needs and finances of my future patients and the financial aspects of my own life, especially those which accompany doctors, like school debts and the costs of operating a practice. At the same time, Dr. Rosenthal highlighted the superfluous expenses hospitals and other medical professionals charge.

Until a more perfect system is implemented into law, a balance between the healthcare industry should be struck with the people they serve. That will keep physicians true to their oath and the people they care for.

This past week, I attended Dr. Rosenthal’s talk, “An American Sickness”. I had never heard of her and was very interested in what she had to say about the current situation of our healthcare system. During the talk, she discussed topics that she talks about much more in-depth in her book. She drew comparisons on how the healthcare system was years ago, when she worked as a medical professional, and how it is today. She talked about her observations on how simple procedures that used to cost close to nothing, now cost thousands of dollars. This talk really got me thinking about what we can do to better our health system. I believe that healthcare is a human right and that no matter who you are or your socioeconomic status, you should have the right to be treated. I’m really interested in health policy and hope that in the future I can make some sort of contribution to this field.

                 This Monday I went to a talk given by Dr. Elizabeth Rosenthal about rising healthcare rising costs. This event was about the exorbitant rising costs of healthcare and their impact on patients. Dr. Elizabeth Rosenthal detailed the ways in which our healthcare system in the U.S. differs from other systems of healthcare around the world. She also discussed the ways in which money is being used in the healthcare system for excessive comforts, such as coffee in the waiting room. I was very surprised to learn that rising healthcare costs is currently the number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States! I think this demonstrates that healthcare costs can become a financial burden and cause inequality.  Dr. Rosenthal’s career as a medical correspondent was most interesting. I rarely hear about doctors who have delved into other careers that meld their interests outside of medicine with their medical training. It was interesting to see how her two interests manifested themselves in her new book.

            I agreed with Dr. Rosenthal because I have personally dealt with medical care costs that seemed to overcharge me for the care I received. I also agree with her advice to patients. I think we really do need to challenge our healthcare providers and insurance agencies to give us the care we want at the price we deserve. Her statements also convinced me that change is not going to come from Washington, D.C. The state level government has people in positions of power that can change things for patients. In addition, I think that this event made me realize that Americans cannot just wait and hope that Congress will pass an acceptable bill. Citizens have to act in order to get the results they want. If other countries don’t deal with exorbitant medical care costs, then why should we?

Although Dr. Rosenthal focuses more on the complex aspects of healthcare that need to be reformed, Irealized that in the big picture, Americans should be more involved in their government. If they were, perhaps the healthcare system would not be where it is today. I think that this demonstrates a failure in our government. People should be able to vote for representatives that can come together and create a plan. The fact that both parties cannot compromise displays a lack of cohesion and divisiveness that we have to fix before we can even begin to think about reforming the healthcare system.