History and Overview

Imagine you are a soldier in the 16^th century. While on the battlefield, you are shot in the leg and carried to a wooden bench. Your surgeon has the same educational background as your barber, and he is attempting to remove the bullet from your leg. The pain is unbearable and there are no anesthetics available, so the nurse offers you some whiskey to drown the pain. The surgeon pours boiling water over your wound in an effort to remove any infection, unaware that this process does more harm than good. After a few unsuccessful tries to remove the bullet, he decides amputation is the only option, and in a few gruesome minuets later your right leg is completely gone.

Now imagine you are solider in Iraq in 2010 with the same gunshot injury. You are carried to a chemical and biologic protective shelter and immediately given anesthesia. Your trained and licensed doctor takes a radiograph of your leg to see where the bullet is, and it is quickly and painlessly removed using a bacteria-free technique. Because of the technology that was available to you, in just a few months you are walking again.¹

The growth of medical advancements in the last couple hundred years is astounding. Mostly because of new technological advancements, the life expectancy in America has grown from 41 in 1900 to 77 in 2010.² This had been made possible by improvements in drugs that can stabilize chronic conditions, vaccines that can eliminate potential epidemics, and machines that can provide doctors with valuable information on how to cure a disease. We feel that when it comes to health care reform, advancements in health care technology should not be compromised in order to reduce health care costs.

Improvements in health care technology definitely do come with a large cost. According to Delivering Healthcare in America: A Systems Approach, technological innovations are the leading cause of medical cost inflation in the 2^nd half of the 20^th century.³ In 20 years, the total cost of our nation’s medical care has increased from less than $50 billion to over $500 billion.⁴ Much of this cost increase is due to advancements in technology. When new technology is implemented in a hospital, many costs come along with this including trained professionals, new facilities, and an increased demand from both consumer and providers to use the technology.

We feel that instead of concentrating only on the huge price tag that comes along with new technology, one must also consider the value of medical advancements. The impact on quality of care that comes along with a better diagnosis, faster cures, and preventative care is astounding.⁵ Many American’s agree with us that the quality of care received because of advancements in technology is worth the cost. According to a random telephone pole, 63 percent of Americans agreed that they are willing to pay a modest tax increase in order to fund medical research.³

Although technology has opened many doors in the medical field, millions of people do not have access to the improved quality of care. This may be because they live in a geographically remote area or simply because they lack health insurance.³ According to an article written at Santa Clare University, over 37 million Americans, including 12 million children, do not have any health insurance at all and therefore are at a disadvantage to take advantage of technological advancements that could improve the quality or even save their life.⁴ This article brings up a lot of examples of the ethical dilemmas that come along with the fact that not all Americans have access to health care.

Certainly, high-tech health care is an inflator of health care costs. At the same time, we feel that providers can make investment decisions based on their community’s best interest by using technology appropriately. The quality of health care that is possible because of technological growths is something that should be of value to all Americans, and going along with this we want to ensure that all American’s have access to any technology that will improve their quality of life. When considering options for health care reform, it is essential that enough money is allocated to cover technology in the medical field.

Works Cited

1. 1. Peoples, George. The New England Journal of Medicine. “Caring for the Wounded in Iraq.” 2004.

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/351/24/2476

2.2 2. Life Expectancy. World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2010. http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wbwdi&met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=life+expectancy+trends

3. 3. Shi, Leiyu, and Douglas A. Singh. Delivering Health Care in America A Systems Approach. Sudbury: Jones and Bartlett, 2007. Print.

4. 4. Unhealthy Delimas. The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. 2008.

5. 5. Frank, Ryan. “Medical Technology and 5 Significant Advancements.” http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=1717059