Patients Are Not Consumers

[StNeotser, ASN, RN]

Patients Are Not Consumers

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: April 21, 2011

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Earlier this week, The Times reported on Congressional backlash against the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a key part of efforts to rein in health care costs. This backlash was predictable; it is also profoundly irresponsible, as I'll explain in a minute.

\But something else struck me as I looked at Republican arguments against the board, which hinge on the notion that what we really need to do, as the House budget proposal put it, is to "make government health care programs more responsive to consumer choice."

Here's my question: How did it become normal, or for that matter even acceptable, to refer to medical patients as "consumers"? The relationship between patient and doctor used to be considered something special, almost sacred. Now politicians and supposed reformers talk about the act of receiving care as if it were no different from a commercial transaction, like buying a car-and their only complaint is that it isn't commercial enough.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/opinion/22krugman.html?_r=1&hp

[eglide87]

Healthcare is a business and the patients are consumers of the product offered. Mr Krugman wants to take us back to days of old where nurses gave the doctor their chair or brought them a cup of coffee. There is nothing wrong with calling patients consumers of healthcare. Its not what we call them but instead how we as a medical community treat them. I am definitely a Consumer of Healthcare.

[Guest717236]

I am definitely a Consumer of Healthcare.

I agree we are consumers. Many of us pay for all or most of our health care insurance.

What has changed is the business aspect of health care. If I need a medication,

I want my MD to prescribe it based on evidence that I need it. Not that because I am

x age, I should be prescribed the medication whether I need it or not. That goes for

labs, CT scans, MRIs. There is big money to be made and we need to be informed consumers

so we make sensible and safe choices about our care. The ethics for some medical /nursing professionals is lacking,in face of only making money.

It is sad how things have changed.

[nicurn001]

If I am to be a true consumer of healthcare , there needs to be a transparent market place of the goods I consume . This is not the case in healthcare , where can I go to compare prices charged by various healthcare providers , there are no comparison sites online , I can't go to google shopping , search for tonsilectomy and compare prices that are available , nor can I choose which manufacturers stent for example is used in a procedure.

I'm sorry I've seen the debates re. consumer v patient , I will always want to be a patient were medical needs appears to have priority , rather than a consumer were price / cost takes precedence .

[tewdles, RN]

I agree that MOST persons entering a health care system are not consumers, they are victims of a health malady or issue and are seeking help. In my experience, pregnant women shop around for their OB care, teens shop around for a good derm, we shop around for the best plastics doc, etc...but most of us interact in the acute care and outpatient settings because they are sick or injured or having a problem. They are not shopping, they are seeking help.

Most people do what their doc says...get this test, go see this person, jump up and down or hold their breath, because they are told to rather than because they want to...etc. We often have no choice in which hospital, which drug, which test, what model/make we get, etc.

Consumers are those people who acquire "stuff" for personal need or use.

I dunno, just seems wrong to consider sick people "consumers".

[WIN007]

I agree that MOST persons entering a health care system are not consumers, they are victims of a health malady or issue and are seeking help. In my experience, pregnant women shop around for their OB care, teens shop around for a good derm, we shop around for the best plastics doc, etc...but most of us interact in the acute care and outpatient settings because they are sick or injured or having a problem. They are not shopping, they are seeking help.

Most people do what their doc says...get this test, go see this person, jump up and down or hold their breath, because they are told to rather than because they want to...etc. We often have no choice in which hospital, which drug, which test, what model/make we get, etc.

Consumers are those people who acquire "stuff" for personal need or use.

I dunno, just seems wrong to consider sick people "consumers".

I see your point but I think that in economic models, anyone who uses or buys or has demand for a resource the term used is consumer. Probably a layover from that.

[OC_An Khe]

We are consumers. There are two types of consumers, those that have no choice due to illness/injury and those that are consuming because the want to out of a perceived need as opposed to necessity. They are, however, lumped together in the same system.

Krugman's point, I believe, is that health care should not be treated the same as other products. It should be removed from complete free market control.

If you philosophically believe that the free market is the cure for everything then you will disagree with Krugman. If not then you will be accepting a governmental role in health care.

By the way, not even Adam Smith believed in a complete free market.

[WIN007]

We are consumers. By the way, not even Adam Smith believed in a complete free market.

wow. Wealth of the Nations? models of free markets working under perfect market conditions (four?) and then acknowledging those conditions near never existed which was the reason for some govt. intercession in the marketplace? Am I close? Been a few years, ok, quite a few. :-)