I got an email today saying that HHS.gov (Health & Human Services) is “Celebrating National Rural Health Day”.  First this is not a dig directly on the fine folks that serve our citizens in the health care profession.  It’s an overall look at the bureaucracy.

I think it was kind of an interesting article, but then, it got me wondering, why do they keep studying the same issues, and getting other people to study the issue–instead of putting the majority of money into problem solving?

You Have the HHS, VA, CHAMPUS, and other organizations all doing something in the healthcare industry.  Do they even talk to each other?  Why is there a problem to simply getting people taken care of?  I think if they spent a third of the money they used creating the agencies, organizations and institutions to study the problem to actually treat and educate the people needing the treatment,  there would be a lot less of a problem to study.

We should work on streamlining the system and spend the bulk of the federal dollars getting people educated on preventive care and provide actual services.  If private organizations want to ‘study’ an issue…then let them raise private funding.

I know research is important.  Government does it, and provides data all the time.  And when the government does the research there is some built in accountability factors.  Yes, I really don’t mind have civil servants and government employees–I actually think there should be more of them.  They should NOT be performing experiments on people in some weird ass arrangement with a private firm, but actually doing the basics of preventive care, proper dieting and studying the effects of how that aids in a healthy society.

Bottom line, rural areas need that funding to provide services way more than some corporation needs it to do research.  Let’s talk about it.  What is your view?

Resources-

Link to their article:  Celebrating National Rural Health Day