Word: careful
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...Green Revolution became a victim of its own success. Food prices plunged by some 60% (when adjusted for inflation) by the late 1980s from their peak in the mid-1970s. Policymakers and aid workers turned their attention to the poor's other pressing needs, such as health care and education. Farming got starved of resources and investment. In 1979, 18% of official development aid worldwide was directed at agriculture; by 2004, that amount sank to 3.5%. "Agriculture lost its glitter," says the FAO's Stamoulis. "The world didn't think that food was a major issue. There was plenty...
...hard to feel sorry for America's family doctors. Any job that averages $179,000 per year and lets you be your own boss is a job most folks wouldn't turn down. With the effort to rein in health-care costs increasingly framed as an unhappy trade-off in which insurers either slash benefits or raise premiums, some in Washington are beginning to ask a question long considered off-limits: Do we simply pay doctors too much...
Doctors themselves could tell you that - particularly primary-care providers (PCPs), the foot soldiers of the U.S. medical system. New doctors graduate from medical school lugging up to $200,000 in student loans. Paying that off takes a big bite out of even a low-six-figure salary. Add to that the high costs, long days and billing headaches involved in running a practice, and it's no wonder so many family docs are trading up to specialties like orthopedics, where the pay can be three times as great and the hours a whole lot shorter. Only...
This so-called fee-for-service tradition has contributed to the dysfunction of the U.S. health-care system. Americans buy health care the same way they buy furniture, clothes and food: one item at a time. Physicians bill by the visit; radiologists bill by the X-ray; hospitals bill by the day. That drunken spending has led to the familiar horror-story numbers: a health-care system that gobbles up 16% of gross domestic product, compared with 9% in other industrialized countries, yet leaves the U.S. trailing those countries in such critical metrics as life expectancy and infant mortality...
...there are ways to fix what ails the docs - and repair the health-care system in the process. In the rolling hills of central Pennsylvania, the Geisinger Health System is trying something different. The 726 physicians and 257 residents and fellows who work there don't do piecework. They are paid a salary - benchmarked against the national average - plus potential bonuses based on how well their patients do under their care. One result is that Geisinger is able to hang on to its PCPs while other hospitals are losing theirs. Another is that Geisinger makes money...