Earlier this week, a French psychiatrist presented his take on diagnosing bipolar disorder in children and adolescents at the annual congress of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology. One aspect he commented on was the notable jump in pediatric diagnoses that occurred in the United States during the past decade, something that has not happened in France or elsewhere in Europe.
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons/NARA/Creative Commons License
Individualism...
Speculating on why, he said one explanation may be that many U.S. psychiatrists (as well as other physicians) get forced into making certain diagnoses so to justify the medications they prescribe and ease insurance reimbursement for their patients. That, in turn, led him on a brief tangent on the roots and implications of fundamental difference in health care coverage between America and virtually all European countries.
"What's different in the United States is that it's the individual [that comes first], and in Europe it's the collectivity first and then the individual. That's why we [European countries] share the [health care] system," suggested Dr. David Cohen.
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons/ Eugène Delacroix/Creative Commons License
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons/Eugène Delacroix/Creative Commons LicenseLa Fratenité
It wasn't an especially novel insight, but coming a few days after I read a recent article in The New Yorker by Jeffrey Toobin on some aspects of pending legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act, it made me think again about how hard it's been for U.S. society to find a broadly acceptable way to provide basic health care to most of its citizens and residents.
As I'm sure any Tea Party member could tell me, the dilemma dates back to deep-seated societal dynamics forged more that two centuries ago and the important difference between countries that place individual rights first and those grounded on la fraternité.
---Mitchel Zoler (on Twitter @mitchelzoler)