"House" and the Public Option

The best TV show around, in my humble opinion, is Fox's "House M.D." I've been watching it since the first episode, I own four seasons of it on DVD (I've seen them all at least 5 times each), and I frequently visit a blog in which an actual medical doctor reviews the show for medical inaccuracies.

That self-same doctor was interviewed by MSNBC for an article about "House" published today. People with real health problems are searching the world for a "real Dr. House", someone who can solve their puzzle and tell them what they have sometime faster than the average of 7 years it takes for a definitive diagnosis for a rare disease.

The article ends with a criticism against the TV doctor that the TV show itself has already addressed. From the article: "In med school, doctors-to-be learn the opposite, summed up by the adage, 'If you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.'" From the show: "Are you in first year medical school? If she had [a common, 'horse' of a disease] the kindly family doctor in Trenton would have made the diagnosis. It'd never get anywhere near this office." Dr. House isn't a fictional version of your family doctor. He's a fictional version of a job that doesn't exist -- the authority that doctors refer you to as an admission that they can't solve your problem. If a regular doctor is your county judge, Dr. House is the Supreme Court. When he has to deal with patients directly in the clinic, he tells them exactly what your doctor will tell you when you talk to them: it's a cold. It's the flu. It's a horse, not a zebra. It's only once the horses are ruled out that Dr. House even comes into play.

One particular story of a too-long-awaited diagnosis struck a nerve.

It took five months — and visits to 21 doctors — before one finally correctly diagnosed her with Lyme disease, a bacterial infection often spread by deer ticks.

That final doctor, she says, did something that all those before her hadn't. “She listened to me,” said Risley, who opted to see a physician who was generous with her time, and got paid well for it, accepting only out-of-pocket payments.

Did you get chills, too? If not, let me spell it out: No one was able to solve her medical problem until she got to the doctor that doesn't accept health insurance. That's not from House, the fictional TV show. No one would write anything so crazily unbelievable. No, no, that's the real-world true story. The elitist, overpaid doctor could afford the time to properly consider and finally solve the puzzle. That's exactly the kind of thing the big Obama Health Bill currently being debated in the legislature is designed to stall. In all our worries about health care costs, we forget one thing: you get what you pay for.

For a further example of the political angle of it, look at Medicare. The principle behind Medicare is that government pays for the health care of the needy. In practice, though, Medicare rarely covers the full price of the service. Doctors have to cut costs, raise prices, and rush through as many patients per day as possible in order to make ends meet when accepting Medicare patients. In short, government health insurance makes health care worse. The White House has been promoting Obama's health care plan with the very words "Medicare for everyone." This spells doom.

You want better medical care? Look to your pocket book. Unlike government programs, it might help.