Week 8 Response-Elena

I thought that the speaker was interesting and very relevant, but I was somewhat disappointed by the lack of realistic solutions presented. Like Sharada, I completely agree with the speaker's statement about our overflow of money into our health care systems. There is no doubt that the U.S. spends too much money on care and sees very few positive health outcomes (We're ranked way too low for supposedly being a "world power", and one of the most developed countries). As Sharada also pointed out, the influence of consumerism in medicine is huge, and the idea of faith-based medicine is pretty ridiculous--why should people feel like a treatment or method is more effective and better just because it is more expensive, or has been pioneered by someone famous??? These problems, though I've heard them being discussed countless times, never cease to shock me. The problem I had with the talk was that Otis Brawley didn't bring up any possible solutions! Aside from saying that we need a major paradigm shift (duh), his message was more pessimistic, and it seemed to me as if he was saying that Americans are so stupid we're probably going to continue along on this path until the entire health care system implodes and we are forced to rebuild it. He said that health care reform was coming, but mainly implied that it was the wrong kind of reform (more money, whereas we need a shift in emphasis to education and prevention). I wish there was more hope for change.