health care

n=22


a: Health care ~
b: trying to find your way through a tangled maze

What: "Trying to navigate the health care system is like trying to find your way through a tangled maze," said Charles Ingoglia, M.S.W., Vice President for Public Policy at the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare. "Sometimes, doctors don't have time to talk to each other or share information."Or maybe they just don't care.

Useful?
Writer: Charles Ingoglia
LCC:
Where: Reference Link Has Evaporated
Date: Jan 23 2014 8:39 PM



a: Health care system ~
b: a black hole

What: " The current health care system is like a black hole in the economic and moral universe that sucks in ever-greater amounts of resources, while producing ever less"page 21 of:"Beyond Ideology: Philosophy, Public Policy, and Health Care Reform" 1994

Useful?
Writer: Alan F. Kremen -
LCC:
Where:
Date: Jan 23 2014 8:16 PM



a: Health care system ~
b: US Education System

What: The article is a comparison of these institutions and why they have problems. For example:"Additionally, we could draw parallels between the success of the highly sophisticated and specialized branches of both health care (e.g. cancer research) that the report lauds and our nation's elite college and university system.""Society matters more than any single institutions. While the quality of our doctors and teachers influence how healthy and educated people are, other factors are, cumulatively, far more important. Both are affected by parenting, neighborhood context, diet, exercise, and so on. But while we rush to blame teachers for the failures of American students, I hear very few rushing to blame doctors for the American populace's unhealthy lifestyle."

Useful?
Writer: Corey Bunje Bower
LCC:
Where:
Date: Jan 23 2014 8:18 PM


Going Off The Rails

a: health care system ~
b: a runaway train

What:

"Anyone with a pulse in the United States has become aware that our health care system is like a runaway train in serious danger of jumping off its track. It's amazing, and confusing, because we are blessed with so much medical innovation"


Useful?
Writer: Brian Carmody
LCC:
Where:
Date: Jan 23 2014 8:21 PM



a: health care system ~
b: a casino where the house holds all the cards

What:

"Brill highlighted several specific examples of exorbitant prices he uncovered in his research, and he suggested that the current health care system is like "a casino where the house holds all the cards." Brill expressed particular concern about tax-exempt, non-profit hospitals that are the most profitable businesses in many small and mid-sized cities across the nation."


Useful?
Writer: Steven Brill
LCC:
Where:
Date: Jan 23 2014 8:28 PM



a: health care system ~
b: one of those tumors

What:

"The only time the country has enacted a large-scale health system change was after a collapse. In 1965, when Medicare was created for the elderly and disabled, some 70 percent had no coverage for hospital costs. We're not that badly off yet. Our health care system is like one of those tumors growing in my patients. The only questions are: When will it become bad enough to make us act? And will that be too late? "

Published: May 5, 2007


Useful?
Writer: ATUL GAWANDE
LCC:
Where:
Date: Jan 23 2014 8:30 PM



a: health care system ~
b: Higgs boson

What:

"And at this point, the clock is ticking to make Obamacare work and get young people signed up. And they're not. As Goodby said, they don't even know what it is."

"The new health care system is "like the Higgs boson - the God particle," Goodby said. "Everybody has heard of it but nobody knows what the hell it is."


From:
December 23, 2013


Useful?
Writer: Jeff Goodby
LCC:
Where:
Date: Jan 23 2014 8:32 PM



a: health care system ~
b: the fire department

What:

"Richter said she strives for a practical approach that will appeal to all audiences. The health care system is like the fire department, she says - something people don't want to use, but want in place, just in case."


Useful?
Writer: Dr. Deb Richter
LCC:
Where:
Date: Jan 23 2014 8:41 PM



a: health care system ~
b: leaning tower of Pisa

What:

"The Canadian health care system is like the leaning tower of Pisa--a fine structure which everyone wants to preserve and improve. The officials in charge are caught between demands from those who want a new escalator for the visitors, and those who say the main priority is to find ways to prevent the tower from falling over "


From:
J Can Assoc Radiol. 1982 Jun;33(2):68-76.


Useful?
Writer: Holmes RB
LCC:
Where:
Date: Jan 23 2014 8:43 PM



a: health care system ~
b: a grocery store without price tags

What:

"Our current third-party-payer health care system is like a grocery store without price tags, where customers fill their carts with "free" steaks whether they need them or not. Since patients are blind to prices, the government has only one way to reduce health care costs: provide less of it."


Useful?
Writer: Dr. Milton R. Wolf
LCC:
Where:
Date: Jan 23 2014 8:46 PM


Huge Boat Analogies Are Cool......

a: health care system ~
b: a huge ocean liner

What:

"Well, you know, this may be a bit of an overused analogy, but it's really true. The nation's health care system is like a huge ocean liner, and you just can't turn it very fast. It will literally take several years to build the new infrastructure to get people covered who aren't covered now. You can't require people to buy insurance until there's a place for them to go to buy it. And until you have everyone buying insurance, you can't require insurance companies to accept people with preexisting health conditions because otherwise only the sick people will sign up."


Useful?
Writer: JULIE ROVNER
LCC:
Where:
Date: Jan 23 2014 8:47 PM



a: health care system ~
b: economic tape worm

What:


Useful?
Writer: Warren Buffett
LCC:
Where: Reference Link Has Evaporated
Date: Jan 23 2014 8:45 PM



a: health care system ~
b: old, drafty house on a hill

What:

"America's health care system is like an old, drafty house on a hill. Wind pours through the doors and window jambs. Heat escapes through the attic. The boiler works far too hard and the radiators are clogged"


Useful?
Writer: David B. Kendall and Anne Kim
LCC:
Where:
Date: Jan 23 2014 8:51 PM



a: health care system ~
b: taking on a Ferrari sized debt

What:

"I must be really stupid because I don't understand the allure of paying extremely high prices for an inferior product. Our health care system is like taking on a Ferrari sized debt for a Hyundai type car. Why are today's conservatives so against the concept of getting value for one's dollar? "


Useful?
Writer: beltane
LCC:
Where:
Date: Jan 23 2014 9:05 PM



a: US health care system ~
b: GM

What:

"The US health care system is like GM. It is broken, it can't be fixed, and all the ideological dogma in the world is not going to save the US health care system from implosion. Canada does not have socialized medicine it has nationalized health insurance. Health care costs here are half what they are in the US and we are healthier -and we don't ride bicycles to work. Canada produces 30% of the cars made in North America because labour costs (health insurance) is cheaper. "


Useful?
Writer: Philip De Groot
LCC:
Where:
Date: Jan 23 2014 8:51 PM



a: Us health care system ~
b: computing circa 1959

What: "At TEDMED, Eric Dishman makes a bold argument: The US health care system is like computing circa 1959, tethered to big, unwieldy central systems: hospitals, doctors, nursing homes. As our aging population booms, it's imperative, he says, to create personal, networked, home-based health care for all."Not really. Mainframe computers work pretty well.

Useful?
Writer: Eric Dishman
LCC:
Where:
Date: Jan 23 2014 9:04 PM



a: Our health care system ~
b: a shiny new car with a blown engine

What:

"Wow, what a mixed bag of reviews. canada is about as free as the US is today, which is not very. We are not "free" to travel to the US anymore, now its "your papers pleez". Our health care system is like a shiny new car with a blown engine in it. It has as many horror stories as success stories and works very well as long as you don't get seriously ill. The waiting times of socialist medicare alone will kill you. I'd sure like to return to the time of Diefenbaker or better yet, the Constitution. "


Useful?
Writer: J Carlton
LCC:
Where:
Date: Jan 23 2014 8:54 PM



a: U.S. health care system ~
b: gigantic, top-heavy Rube Goldberg machine

What:

"The U.S. health care system is like a gigantic, top-heavy Rube Goldberg machine that should be handed over to the people who run Taco Bell. At least they know how to think outside the bun."


Useful?
Writer: jnelander
LCC:
Where:
Date: Jan 23 2014 8:57 PM



a: U.s. health care system ~
b: a once great muscle car

What:

"The broken U.S. health care system is like an old car that at one time was a top-of-the-line muscle car but due to neglect has been reduced to a beat-up wreck that limps along belching blue smoke from its tailpipe. If the owner is a person of means, the remedy is simple enough. If not, the solution is to pour more oil into the engine in the hope that somehow it will continue running. In time, however, the engine will die and the car will stop running. Similarly, we can continue to
pour more money into health care without improving performance as the WHO report suggests and even adopt universal health insurance coverage without making health care affordable as the bankruptcy study indicates. Driven by financialization, the system will limp along until
it collapses and then it will become clear to all that the problem is systemic."


Useful?
Writer: Edward J. O'Boyle, Ph. D. Mayo Research Institute
LCC:
Where:
Date: Jan 23 2014 8:58 PM



a: U.S. health care system ~
b: an 800 pound wild hog

What:

It's an 800 pound hog that wants to eat everything it can get its mouth on. In the case of the medical systems it wants to get as much money from every human being as possible. If you have trouble with this idea, look at the cost of healthcare in the US compared to other industrialized nations. The US spends ~18% of its GDP on medical care. Other countries spend ~10-12%. Where is all that money going?


Useful?
Writer: Lucrezia
LCC:
Where: Reference Link Has Evaporated
Date: Dec 31 2015 11:09 AM


It's Not A System

a: American health care system ~
b: buying a car by parts

What:

"O'Kane, of the NCQA, trots out a metaphor that she's heard at health care conferences she's attended over the years. "The American health care system is like buying a car where they come and put the parts on your lawn. What we're all looking for is the entity that puts it all together and that is able to be accountable for the performance of the vehicle, rather than whether you got good spark plugs."


If this is a system, it's not a very
good one.


Useful?
Writer: Margaret E. O'Kane
LCC:
Where:
Date: Jan 23 2014 8:38 PM



a: Reforming the health care system ~
b: fixing an airplane that is in the air

What:

"Reforming the health care system is like fixing an airplane that is in the air. It's repairing an engine at full speed, and you're not allowed to let the airplane crash."


The link article is lengthy discussion
of healthcare in the US and in Europe.


Useful?
Writer: Thomas Zeltner
LCC:
Where:
Date: Jan 23 2014 8:35 PM



Green Venn Diagram

METAMIA is a free database of analogy and metaphor. Anyone can contribute or search. The subject matter can be anything. Science is popular, but poetry is encouraged. The goal is to integrate our fluid muses with the stark literalism of a relational database. Metamia is like a girdle for your muses, a cognitive girdle.