Why would we be talking about the medical/health system being some type or form of "complex"? A complex is a complicated, convoluted or twisted network of conjoined forces, factors, structures or ideas that grow into large bureaucratic mass (mess)to obfuscate or hide some agenda. Is this what our healthcare system has become?There is a rather vast web of "players" in this very multiple design of political lobbyists represented by the medical insurance and 3rd party system payers along with the pharmaceutical industry, biomedical tech industry, the hospital associations, medical doctor societies and associations, U.S. Health & Human Services medicare, medicaid, HIPPA, the FDA and USDA.
It would appear that these industries all tend to gain on the level of illness or sickness of those wh've purchased goods and services from their trade to improve their very being and life existence. As the public continues to suffer due to lack of information or personal funds, the complex of health corporations and major organizations that represent them continue to gain revenue exponentially at the expense of the masses. This is the new great game in the 21st century.
As diseases become epidemic and more chronic(long term), who tends to really benefit in the end? As healthcare costs for premiums, diagnostics or medical visits increase disproportionately for COLA(the cost of living index/adjustment)it is the corporations of a massive complex of affiliate who ally themselves in a powerful networks answerable only to corporate investors and shareholders who tend to gain massively.
If disease designation is "managed" by an international diagnostic code(ICD) and the pharmaceutical industry "creates" a cure, then the commercialization of "illness' through advertisement is circulated through the mass media so that the consumer can "ask their medical doctor" about their product to influence sales in the market.In most post-graduate medical scenarios for practicing physicians the pharmaceutical representative is a major "educator" for the busy practitioners logging in heavy long hours in their clinics. The "rep" can advise the busy doctor and guide him or her to their product, inducements included. Its no secret. Even though the FDA has tried to curb its activities, it's merely paying lip service.
What is a monopoly none other than a powerful group of special interests and investors that control (fix) pricing all at one time so that real competition in a free market system can be virtually eliminated. As a healthcare system becomes more consolidated under one "order" , the chances of competition which ensures consumer protection, quality control and good services are eroded to reduce the costs factor of production. If all 3rd party or HMOS systems join one federally funded system we could easily see the incentive of this take place.
Not even the world of academia is absolved of their involvement of participating wittingly or unwittingly in this matter. Even peer reviewed articles that have been deemed suspect with questionable results of lab data and clinical trials "fudged" when submitted to the FDA for final approval of drugs, diagnostics , protocols and treatments. Whistleblowers have had a rather hard time and the mesely 1 or 2 million dollar fine on a multi-billion dollar multi-national drug corporation is nothing more than a license for them to continue doing it. But, that is a public policy matter , isn't it? No concern to you. If key committee members on congressional health matters are advised by lobbyists, we can not expect their to be any cleaning up anytime too soon.
Medical doctors are very important pawns in a grand complex chess game of money, greed and control. In the not so distant past physicians were considered the philosopher healer who practiced "do no harm" and the prevention of disease before it even occurred. But, what happened is that as medicine became less of an art form and more of a business, the businessmen saw that there was not as much profit margin in prevention care, spending an extra 20 minutes at the bedside or relying more on physical diagnosis. The pharmaceutical industry which is really the (pertro)chemical industry saw novel and capital ways to make capital by "pushing" the potential benefits of their products even if the side effects outweighed the benefits. This created more nosocomial infections(drug resistant bacteria), iatrogenic effects(doctor induced mistakes0, and a mortality rate of greater than 300,00 annually. But, it was genius in the making. Why? Because no industry had ever been more "self-generating" in the history of mankind. If these negative effects occur as they do, that means that more disease will coincidintally occur, which means more pharmaceuticals will have to be utilized , more hospital beds occupied for longer stays and more diagnostics and more specialists to be seen. The exponential benefit is legend beyond compare.
Today, we want to mandate that every piece of data, lab,diagnostic or medical be compiled and fed into a computer database. Research has shown that medical electronic data companies have more data than know what to do with . By the way, what are they doing with all that stuff anyway? Biomedical technology already exists that can read virtually every biochemical and every physiologic activity in the human organism. These "biomedical gadets" are smaller than your credit card and via wi-fi can be remotely connected to that large database system to show all your activity in real time. Is this "complex" complex enough? The whole idea is to simplify the complex so that it will one day eventually fit rather neatly into the palm of your hand or some other place on your body.
This is the Medical Industrial Complex. One never really gets "better", but is "treated" with tinctures that take their course over time. The real medicine is a very highly complex , highly organized , rapidly mobilized and globalized agenda about to be laid out to a rather uninformed unsuspecting populous . At the end of the day one's health is commodity traded on the stock exchange and your health data is stock that can be purchased for a price. Do you see where this is leading? One day Wall Street will be placing "Puts" on your body's health-stock. Who benefits from this "complex game", it's the investors not the one's mandated to participate in supporting its existence!
The only counter to this is that human beings become more involved and accountable in taking care of their own health. This not only means personal responsibility by exercise, nutritional support, and behavioral modification, but learning about prevention. It would also require that the structure of graduate medical education changes as well to one based on prevention. The system potentially could be radically overhauled by changing the mentality of one of sickness and disease to one of wellness and prevention. This would allow for the healthcare system to be self-sustaining by subsidizing itself via reduction in the over-utilization of resources. Does the public have recourse? Only through time and education is there effective change to policy
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