Turn Your Head and Complain

In the wake of the passage of Health Care Reform I thought I'd give you an idea of the alternatives for the next steps.

We could adopt a Scandinavian style process:



Or perhaps something modeled along the UK's National Health Service:



As long as vacation time for radiologists is sharply curtailed I could go either way on this.

My Brain Hurts

This afternoon I received an email from a friend of mine who is a medical professional, containing a link to this op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. The email was signed off with "Welcome to the 2 tier American health care system coming soon to a city near you."

Now, this piece has already been dealt with ably here and here - OK, they were right next to each other, but it's my way of maximizing efficiency and keeping costs down. (For further efficiencies, the comments on both posts offer some good additional commentary and I recommend them highly.) However, I would like to address briefly my friend's signoff.

"Welcome" to a two-tier system? When too many people's primary care provider is whoever happens to be on call at the ER that day, I'd say we were already there.

Anyway, how bad could it be?