Healthcare reform was a frontline topic during the recent presidential elections. The political warfare and misleading information around the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as Obamacare, has prevented the public from understanding its intended purpose, and has left many skeptical about its benefits. It is safe to say the general public has little to no idea about the quality of healthcare delivery in their respective regions.
In fact, it is not a far cry to claim that even healthcare professionals might not truly understand the issues facing American healthcare. Thus, most of the public is generally uninformed or misinformed about the population level problems facing the healthcare system. Therefore, it is quite simple for political parties to misguide the public and capitalize on their uninformed perceptions. If the public knew more about the flaws present in the healthcare system, perhaps they would better realize the PPACA is a reasonable start at addressing the failings of our system.
The Dartmouth Atlas Project is an online database which collects Medicare spending and utilization data from around the country. Information gathered from the database has shown immense variation in the way medical resources are utilized by even similar regions, communities, and health care organization. Evidence has repeatedly shown that, from a population perspective, areas that spend more on medical care do not consistently benefit from increased quality of care or patient wellbeing. Variation in the type of care delivered can be attributed to diverse incidence and prevalence of disease severity or the type of care a well- informed patient chooses. Variation in health care delivery is thus omnipresent and expected, because every patient is unique and medical innovation presents a growing number of care options to choose from.
