Does Health Care Need Its Own Occupy Wall Street?

Occupy Wall Street is a group of protesters occupying the financial district of New York City. They are there to protest the greed and corruption of Wall Street. Occupy Wall Street has now spread to multiple locales across the United States.

I think it is time to protest the corruption of the health care system in much the same way.

As it stands right now, most people don’t get too fired up about the dynamics of health care, unless of course it involves mention of “Romney-Care” or “Obama-Care”. Then they rail incessantly about it. The debate is usually based more so on party lines than it is on real data and impact on the patient.

There will come a time, perhaps not so long from now, when patients are going to get fed up with the current health care system. They will get fed up with being under-treated (due to insurance coverage) and/or over-treated (due to providers lacking evidence-based practice).

Health care consumers would do well to pay attention to Occupy Wall Street. They might see a lot of similar complaints.

Patients put a lot of trust in their health care providers to prescribe treatments and interventions that are in their best interests. This trust has been betrayed more and more over the years. Many, if not most, patients simply don’t realize …

… that there are many medical conditions that are afflicted with a significant over-utilization of treatments. Many of these treatments have been shown to have little to no effect - nothing better than Mother Nature herself;

… that insurance companies can simply refuse to pay, even when they say they will pay;

… that a reimbursement model that is based on “pay by procedure” will always have a potential inherent conflict of interest between a provider doing what provides an income for themselves versus doing what is right for the patient;

… that their legislators – Republicans and Democrats alike - aren’t acting in their best interests. They are voting with the interests of Big Medicine and Big Pharma in the forefront, lobbying for legislation that seeks to support these entities and their own hidden agendas while claiming that this is done to “make health care better and safer”.

Do these issues sound familiar? They might just echo the sentiments of those protesting Wall Street – same principles, different enemy.

Slavoj Zizek, speaking at Liberty Plaza on October 9, 2001, as part of Occupy Wall Street, stated that

“They tell you we are dreamers. The true dreamers are those who think things can go on indefinitely the way they are. We are not dreamers. We are the awakening from a dream that is turning into a nightmare. We are not destroying anything. We are only witnessing how the system is destroying itself.” 

The full transcript of Zizek’s speech can be found here.

Health care in the United States is a perfect example of the dreamers who think things can go on indefinitely the way they are. The goal of Big Medicine and Big Pharma is to maintain the status quo. Why? Because it is economically lucrative for them to do so. Sounds a lot like Wall Street, doesn’t it?

In the meantime, we get to watch the health care system bankrupt itself by eating up a greater and greater percentage of the GDP. All of those opponents to health care reform are sitting on the sidelines, standing by as the system implodes before them. But no worries, they are still making their money.

The dreamers, indeed.

Blind faith is no longer an option in the world of health care. Patients must become good consumers. They must be educated so that they can establish their own series of checks and balances in the process.

There will come a day when patients WILL realize – fully – that the current health care system is in many ways no better than Wall Street. We are in need of our own “Occupy Wall Street”. Let’s face it – if Wall Street is getting nervous, what would happen to those that control our health care system?

Do you want a system focused on your health - and not one that continues to line the deep pockets of Big Medicine and Big Pharma? Do you want legislators to be responsible for representing you and not the special interests?

If we can protest Wall Street, then we can certainly protest something just as important to all of us – our health care.

Photo credits: net_efekt