using patient satisfaction as a measurement of quality

I think customer satisfaction is a good measurement of quality of service when you're at Nordstrom, but when you're rating medical care it's hard to get a subjective response from patients.  I don't disagree that health care in the country needs improvement, however I don't think we focus all of our efforts solely on raising patient's individual satisfaction of health care.  In class we've learned that the majority of healthcare spending in this country is spent on a minority of the population, namely the elderly.  In addition, we saw that the elderly have historically had strong grassroots efforts lobbying on their behalf for health care rights.  We've also learned that in the UK the government highly regulates what treatments or medications are approved for the elderly which helps control costs and spreads out the resources more evenly.  In their case, they are obviously not going to be happy with the treatment, or lack thereof, received.  I think since the elderly population has a large voice too much of our healthcare dollars are spent trying to appease them, which isn't to say they don't deserve it but a system more on par with the UK's may be more beneficial to everyone rather than the uneven allotment of resources we now have, which isn't even producing ideal results for the target population.