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For Profit C-Sections. What's Next?

By Joe Consumer

Former John Waters-muse turned talk show host turned home birth advocate Ricki Lake produced a documentary a few years ago called The Business of Being Born, which, among other things, covers the ever-increasing C-Section birth rate in this country.  I remember some of her talk show appearances promoting the film, where she used some pretty strong language blaming doctors? ?fear of lawsuits? for this phenomenon (which is not to say that the increasingly out-of-touch American Medical Association was so happy with the movie either, but that?s a whole different blog post!) .

Yeah, all the docs like to blame lawsuits for this and other "unecessary procedures", which is the basis for their advocating so-called ?tort reform,? like caps on compensation.  California's $250,000 non-economic damages cap is their gold standard.

Well, low and behold, turns out that the Pacific Business Group on Health took a look at C-Section rates in California, which has been living with this cap since 1975, and here?s what they found: 

[W]omen were at least 17 percent more likely to have a cesarean section at a for-profit hospital than at a nonprofit or public hospital from 2005 to 2007. A surgical birth can bring in twice the revenue of a vaginal delivery.

In addition, some hospitals appear to be performing more C-sections for nonmedical reasons -- including an individual doctor's level of patience and the staffing schedules in maternity wards, according to interviews with health professionals. ...

In California, hospitals can increase their revenues by 82 percent on average by performing a C-section instead of a vaginal birth.

What?  Impatient doctors? Hospitals performing unnecessary procedures to pad their bottom line, not because they fear of lawsuits?  I could swear I?ve seen that before.  (hmm,mmm,mmm.)

Full post as published by ThePopTort on September 13, 2010 (boomark / email).