By Danielle Ofri
Physician, Writer, Editor
Here is an excerpt:
But this is just one example of unethical allocation of money in medicine. Much ado was rightly made last year when Medicare data showed a few doctors with unsavory and maybe illegal billing practices. But for all the complaints about doctors’ salaries driving up healthcare costs, hardly anyone made a peep when that same data revealed that it is the salaries of the administrators and executives that are tipping the scales.
Nor did anyone so much as hiccup when it was reported that $455 million dollars was spent on TV ads since the Affordable Care Act was enacted, more than 90% of which was devoted to trying to destroy the ACA. We are so jaded about CEO salaries and the money swamp of politics that we hardly are hardly bothered when we see these statistics.
When I read about the $400 million was spent on TV ads to prevent uninsured Americans from getting health insurance, I was frankly disgusted. If people with deep pockets are really interested in improving our healthcare system there are far better ways to use that money. That handsome sum could have put several thousand nurses in clinics or schools. It could have sponsored medical school for 2000 students from underserved communities. Heck, it could have purchase 6 million albuterol inhalers and handed them out. But no, the money was squandered on TV advertisements.
The entire article is here.
