MEDICAL MARKETING OF COSMETIC SURGERIES

Medical Marketing of Cosmetic Surgeries

Medical Marketing of Cosmetic Surgeries

Introduction

The US health care system is ill, perhaps dying, and it is running up an enormous bill. We are being warned that things may get worse before they get better as the system's condition continues to decline despite all attempted cures. The primary symptoms include costs that rise at a 10.5 per cent annual rate, a 12 per cent consumption of our GNP, and 37 million Americans with no health insurance. A cure becomes even more elusive when the secondary symptoms of the “greying of America”, explosive growth of life-sustaining therapies, and extensive use of costly high-technology procedures are considered. These symptoms are even more alarming because our infant mortality rate ranks 22nd among industrialized nations (Mahler, 1990, pp. 122-3) and our life-expectancy is similarly ranked. While no one cure has been identified, many stop-gap procedures and treatments are under consideration by government officials, insurance companies, consumers, business representatives, and health care providers.

Medical Marketing of Cosmetic Surgeries

Some would pronounce our health care system dead and start all over again with a new system. Others argue for caution and would utilize measures to reverse individual symptoms only. One issue everyone agrees on is the severity of the symptoms. As costs continue to soar, neither private business nor the government want to pay the bill, and each is trying to shift the costs to the other. Even the AFL-CIO has joined the call for the system to be revamped. This paper will explore the symptoms and causes of the illness and focus on one proposed cure - rationing of health care services.

The word rationing is extremely value-laden, and emotionally charged for most Americans. We perceive health care as a right to which we have unlimited access, and we are accustomed to participating in our own health care. Rationing is based on allocation of scarce resources, which can be divided into macro allocation and micro allocation. Macro allocation is the process of setting social priorities on a societal level (Mahler, 1990, p. 125), with the underlying implication that there will be unequal treatment at the individual level (Evans, 1983, p. 2203). Market economies are considered, and expensive treatments that benefit only a small number of citizens would be denied. Micro allocation brings the distribution of a scarce resource to the level of the individual in an attempt to optimize choices made by the clinician and patient (Mahler,1990, p. 125).

Medical rationing has always existed as an unintentional aspect of our health care system. The poor and the uninsured are rationed out of the system by their inability to pay. Consequently, when they do finally seek care, they tend to be sicker and to run up larger bills. Peter Censky, vice-president, Metropolitan Healthcare Council says, “It's well known that the poor, due to fear of debt, unwillingness to accept charity care or difficulty in obtaining medical care, tend to postpone medical treatment. As a result, the poor typically enter the system through ...