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It's an argument for having dentists compete, as they do, and picking the one who does a good job.
by mhb 3y ago
It's an argument for having dentists compete, as they do, and picking the one who does a good job.
- Sharlin 3y agoIt's not like a layman can have a good idea of whether a dentist has done a good job, except in cases where the job was clearly botched. People can't realistically make an informed choice based on dentist competence, so soft metrics like patient comfort and general bellyfeel dominate. Moreover, people hopefully don't need dental services very frequently, so gathering enough data takes a long time.
- mhb 3y agoOK. But a single payer addresses none of those issues.
- Sharlin 3y agoSingle payer has many, many more data points from which to draw conclusions.
- zbentley 3y agoWell, it tries to. Whether or not it succeeds is the subject of lots and lots of debate, but single payer systems I'm aware of have accountability models driven by (usually public-sector) audits and quality controls that try to optimize for health outcomes. The rationale being that the payer (government) spends less overall, and is more likely to be supported (voted for), if the population has good health outcomes in areas that the government can influence via the healthcare system.
- mhb 3y agoPaying and quality assessment don't need to be coupled. The government doesn't need to be paying for the healthcare in order to make recommendations aimed at improving health outcomes. It would probably be happy to swell its ranks by starting up a dental review board. Though I'm not optimistic about either its ability to fund healthcare or assess its quality.