That is the plan some are considering:
Democrats in the Minnesota state Senate want to give publicly insured patients $20 gift cards to stores such as Target as an incentive to follow their doctor’s orders.Sen. Linda Berglin, who leads the health budget panel, is betting that it will pay off for the state to sink $1 million into incentives for diabetics who control their blood sugar and smokers who quit.
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- My take: Bribing patients, Dr. Naturopaths, drug samples
- How the government is regulating prescribing practices
- 1 doctor for 18,000 patients
- Physicians are getting sued by patients they never met
- Do physician quality measures tell patients who’s a good doctor?
- Nurses and orders
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{ 3 comments }
How about the incentive being you don’t receive public benefits if you smoke and no dialysis if you don’t follow doctor’s orders. Typical namby-pambies who probably own stock in Target.
One wonders the size of kickbacks (or campaign contributions) politicians supporting this scheme will receive from ’stores such as Target’ when the government starts handing out Target gift certificates (which the taxpayers will have to purchase).
Anon 6:44 suggestion might make sense if “following doctor’s orders” only applied to smoking or not taking meds while being diabetic or transplant recepient.
Unfortunately people who make rules are not experts. Give them power, and the next step would be to extend “following doctor’s orders” to anything including things experts disagree with or things some doctors believe in in spite of evidence. Including CT scans for lung cancer, or, talking about times past, HRT.
For the same reasons I don’t believe in incentives either; although giving Target certificates might cause people to buy more which may improve the economy…. You might loose in taxes but gain by investing in stocks of companies that benefit from these incentives.
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