Healthcare: is it a right or a luxury? | Tarik Sammour | TEDxAdelaide

This is the first time I've heard a balanced and unbiased analysis of the healthcare industry.

It's a necessity that has to be affordable to all. Atleast that's the kind of society I want/wish I lived in.

Quality of life is much more important than quantity of life. Help us to live as best we can for as long as we can. Each of us has a trajectory that is virtually unchangeable.

As a US citizen on public healthcare after having amazing private healthcare with my parents, this is an extremely interesting and thought-provoking talk. Many interesting things to think about.

I truly enjoy listening to this topic, I actually came here to help grab an idea for one of my university presentations. However one thing I wished more addressed was the mention of just general markups in America’s healthcare system. Diabetes is a big leading factor in the US, and while many people can develop it overtime, majority are born with it. Insulin costs about $5 to make, however without paying substantial healthcare prices, a vast number of individuals pay up to $300 a month! While we love to fly our flags and talk about the greatness of our patriotism, our own contenders, our providers are leeching everyone out of their hard earned, minimum wage, salaries. Everything should be used with care and patients should understand the quality they are receiving but just like in the talk, it should be equal, pay out of pocket for top of the line, and for the rest, just let them survive affordably.

We should view healthcare as a public good instead of a business. People that make comparisons with food and healthcare is accurate. However, the prices aren't. Food can be cheap, while healthcare for the middle class is extremely high. Unfortunately.

our health care system is like income eugenics.

A truly insightful and thought provoking talk.

Dr. Tarik Sammour was very candid in explaining his personal experiences with the healthcare system and how things differ from country to country. This allowed for a more effective open discussion of the issue of whether healthcare is a right of it is a luxury. I would like to state that healthcare is neither a right nor a luxury. It is a necessity of human kind as we see the population is more in need of healthcare for various reasons. With the mass production of food we have seen an increase in GMO products that are causing health issues in many children who grow up to develop other health conditions, this is just one of many examples of why we are more in need of healthcare. We also have a big set of people who are growing older and need more care in comparison to younger population. With all this in mind there are many things to consider about providing free healthcare to all or fully privatizing the field. Lets put it into perspective, a younger and overall healthy person came down with a case of Covid and an older patient with some pre-existing conditions has a case of Covid. In both patients the chief complaint is Covid which makes it seem that free healthcare is the best option to go with. However, we need to consider the patient as a whole and when we think about that the cost of taking care of the older patient goes up a lot more in comparison to the younger patient. This begs the question on how we can equitably and efficiently distribute funds to better serve the community. This is a social justice issue that needs to have a multi-fold solution that allows for a mixed approach with both government aided and private sector healthcare. A mixed approach will also allow to keep the quality and access to healthcare equitable to the major population. This is an important concept that needs to be talked about and have a solution enacted as soon as possible due to the high demand of healthcare rising each year.

Some good ideas. And people here have some great comments. It is especially interesting to hear the personal health crisis many of you have gone through. And how you have reconciled, or tried to reconcile, our Healthcare system to your needs. Myself and Nurses at work talk/debate on this complex issue a lot. Alas, we have no cure for the Health system dilemma in the US. We know many things it needs...just not how to get there. And to be honest, I'm sipping red wine and eating fresh baked apple pie with caramel over the top... So I'll be one of those needing the system, and undeservedly so.

Good business in healthcare becomes more like a sick care. Healthcare shouldn’t be looked at as a luxury but as necessity. The responsibly lies with all of us.

Healthcare is neither a right nor a luxury. Much like food and shelter, it's simply a necessity. Tarik is spot on that a hybrid model is the best model to pursue. It would be privatized but allow full portability and collective bargaining. The government would play the role of referee: regulating the players thru registration & licensing, punishing bad actors, ensuring standards of quality, and providing tax subsidies or credits for people under a certain income. Like a football game, the government is best as the referee and should never coach or play the game.

I worked in healthcare (US), hospitals set their own prices and our outrageously high and can vary, same with doctors, same procedure can cost $4k or $40k and not any better or different, there is no standard. Some other countries with great healthcare also pay education, dr's aren't loan poor (also high Mal/insu,we sue a lot here) dr's feel like they owe society and not the opposite, some countries dr's, teachers, cops all get paid the same, like $150k, not millions. Also their government does the haggling with supplies, pharma and devices keeping costs down, don't have to pay for all the different billing and coding ( highest cost in healthcare)

Maybe offer truly competitive prices and stop feeding govt complicity with price-fixing, or as in the USA, criminal monopolies.

In this discussion, Dr. Sammour starting his talk with the dichotomy of privatized versus universal health care models was a nice foundation for the rest of the presentation. The most insightful point of the presentation, in my opinion, came when he mentioned the second of his three key points: care about cost. I believe that a physician laying out the costs of different surgeries or diagnostic tests, not to mention the treatment plans that follow, could jeopardize their role as a fiduciary for the patient. Of course, there is a price tag for everything in this world, and health care is no exception. However, a doctor’s responsibility should be to provide the best care possible within the means of their health care system to the patient. Factoring in the cost analysis could influence the patient’s decision in their care more than it already does if they are fortunate enough to have insurance to help cover their hospital costs. If discussing the cost of these procedures is factored into the equation, I believe this would be challenging the beneficence a health-care provider is assumed to uphold with their patient. The reason I think this is because it could lead to suboptimal medical decisions to achieve better financial decisions. It is assumed through a physician following the key ethical tenet of beneficence that they are morally obliged to provide this gold standard of care. However, Dr. Sammour did comment further on his point that certain healthcare decisions such as inexpensive wound dressings can provide just as much benefit as the more expensive ones. I do agree with him on this point, because there are certainly opportunities to be less wasteful in a hospital setting and still achieve quality patient care. Finally, the last point made in the discussion emphasized another ethical tenet: the patient’s autonomy. I agree with Dr. Sammour that the patient ultimately has the final say in difficult decisions regarding his or her care. The quote at the end of the discussion includes “reasonable cost” as a goal in cancer treatment, which to me seems to violate the fiduciary role of a physician toward the patient. Ideally, the finances would not be a contributing factor into these tough decisions, but clearly it has a place in medicine that is not leaving

Dr. Sammour brings up a very interesting point about clinicians using all possible resources only because they are available to the them. I agree with him that there are currently medical practices in the US that may not be beneficial to the patient in the long run, but we use them because they are readily available. I believe that this violates the ethical guideline of nonmaleficence. The notion of nonmaleficence means that doctors have a moral imperative to do no harm. It implies that physicians will not provide interventions that are known to be ineffective, that they should act with due care and diligence, and that benefits and burdens should be evenly balanced. In the case that was presented by Dr. Sammour, clearly there is no rationale behind using expensive wound dressings. As he said, this does not benefit the patient, which clearly violates the ethical guideline of nonmaleficence. Wound dressings that we commonly see in convenience stores seem like an insignificant cost to most of us. But in hospitals, the cost of these wound dressings may be astronomically higher. When clinicians use ineffective treatments, the cost is passed on to the patient. Cost of healthcare is a burden to patients, and in cases where physicians use non-beneficial procedures, the burden to patients clearly outweigh the benefit. I believe that limiting the use of non-beneficial treatments, procedures, and medical resources will decrease healthcare costs. Hospitals and clinicians need to include cost of the procedure as a burden to the patient and reassess their thinking of quality over quantity. This is probably not the solution to the increasing costs of US healthcare, but it is a good place to start.

If you have insurance you never ask "how much is that test" that is why it's so expensive. PERIOD!!!!

My recommendation would be to build more hospitals and employ more doctors/nurses. The more you build, the more competition there will be. This will drive the prices down without switching from one payer model to another. Making healthcare completely free for everyone will not fix the root cause of the problem. Our country needs more high level development if it wants to keep the high quality care and high productivity.

As a Nurse I am amazed at this information.

There are a lot of factors left out of this discussion as you would expect with such a complex concept as healthcare. Just a few listed here off top of my head. Cost of health insurance due to medical malpractice and lawsuits justified or.not. An insurance system that does not promote patient knowledge of cost beyond their deductible payments or copay. Hospitals not telling patients cost of basic treatment like aspirin or bandages or even the horrible food they serve , I think brining down cost apart for requiring old people to die, should be our main focus