Bad Language: Words One Patient Won’t Use (And Hopes You Won’t Either)

This is a really good article about language that is currently being used in the general public discussions regarding healthcare.  The names they use for "patients" and "people" have been engineered to make it sound has if the patient, or "consumer" of health care services has more power in our system than they actually have.  This all feeds into the notion that people have a lot of personal choice within the existing healthcare system, when in reality, they don't.  This leads to situations where "choice" translates into extra burdens for the patient on a number of fronts - whether it's insurance coverage particulars and/or the quality of the medical care being received - it now becomes the patient's responsibility to know everything and become the manager of his/her own care - usually while ill.

In this article, the author, Jesse Gruman, discusses what those labels really mean and how that translates into actual reality for the patient or person being affected.  To read the entire article, click this link:
http://careandcost.com/2011/08/11/bad-language-words-one-patient-wont-use-and-hopes-you-wont-either/