Incentive perversion....

Interesting Article over at The Healthcare Blog discussing who should care about you and your health...

Most disturbing paragraph:

Well, for goodness sake, what about your doctor? Your health professionals are there for you. But they too have perverse incentives. The most prevalent of these is that they are trained to and get paid well for taking care of sick individuals. The system does not reward them financially at all for improving health. They are also big believers in patient accountability and don’t usually buy that victim thing. So they quickly articulate a treatment plan so they can go on to the next sick person who needs their help. They expect you, the passive victim, to be proactive about learning everything you need to do to execute that plan and carry it out. They are not on the same page as society is regarding who is accountable for keeping you healthy. They’d say it’s you, with their help from time to time.