The Affordable Health Care Act

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Although the Affordable Health Care Act represents a step in the right direction towards encouraging all Americans to benefit themselves of medical services, the bill fails to address the source causes of problems in the system. The American health care system is imperfect because it is a nonprofit model that places profits far ahead of patients. When profits come ahead of patients, the result is an incapability to fulfill the ethical duties of being a health care worker. A progressive transformation of the American health care system would systematically undo the wicked link between corporate interests and the interests of health care.

The relationship between doctors and drug companies has been well established and well documented. Major news media resources like The Atlantic, as well as professional peer-reviewed journals like the New England Journal of Medicine cover stories addressing the potential ethical puzzles between physicians and pharmaceutical companies. Shaywitz (2013) has described the problem as “a bunch of wicked pushers who pay off vulnerable doctors to prescribe their latest expensive, mediocre product,” while still defending the special relationship that has developed between doctors and pharmaceutical companies (p. 1). Shaywitz’s (2013) argument is based on opinion on estimate only. Most established professional journals imply that collusion between doctors and drug companies leads to a range of problems that potentially harm patients. Writing for the British Medical Journal, Moynihan (2003) locates actual empirical evidence showing that doctors’ prescribing habits changes measurably after the skillful marketing techniques used by pharmaceutical industry representatives: techniques ranging from free ...

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Campbell, E.G. (2007). Doctors and drug companies, Scrutinizing influential relationships. New England Journal of Medicine 2007; 357: 1796-1797.

Carollo, K. (2010). Pay dirt: hundreds of doctors earned big money from drug companies. ABC News. 25 October, 2010. Retrieved online: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/drug-companies-payments-doctors-revealed-database/story?id=11929217

“Let the Sunshine In,” (2013). The Economist. Mar 2, 2013. Retrieved online: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21572784-new-efforts-reveal-ties-between-doctors-and-drug-firms-let-sunshine

Moynihan, R. (2003). Who pays for the pizza? BMJ 2003; 326:1189.

Shaywitz, D.A. (2013). Between doctors and drug companies. The Atlantic. 7 May 2013. Retrieved online: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/05/getting-to-the-right-relationship-between-doctors-and-drug-companies/275605/

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