Reform and Medical Costs »
Posted By Beau7890 1 week, 3 days ago in Health & Fitness
Americans are deeply concerned about the relentless rise in health care costs and health insurance premiums. They need to know if reform will help solve the problem. The answer is that no one has an easy fix for rising medical costs. The fundamental fix — reshaping how care is delivered and how doctors are paid in a wasteful, dysfunctional system — is likely to be achieved only through trial and error and incremental gains.
The good news is that the bill just approved by the House and a bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee would implement or test many reforms that should help slow the rise in medical costs over the long term. As a report in The New England Journal of Medicine concluded, “Pretty much every proposed innovation found in the health policy literature these days is encapsulated in these measures.”
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Beau7890
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Beau78901 week, 3 days ago
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Many of the objections to attempts at healthcare reform stem from the fact that overall healthcare costs still rise under the proposed bills. But few mention that costs rise less than under our current system. The goal of cost reduction is to keep healthcare costs from increasing at a faster pace than incomes and revenues.
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From the article:
Republican critics say, correctly, that the health care bills would saddle the government with large new costs to cover the uninsured by expanding Medicaid and providing subsidies to help low- and middle-income people buy insurance. And they say, incorrectly, that the effort should not move ahead until a sure-fire way is found to rein in rising health care costs.
Their arguments overlook the fact that the government is already paying many of these costs, through special payments to hospitals, each time a person without insurance, and with no means to pay, goes to an expensive emergency room for treatment. It also overlooks the fact that both bills are designed to keep deficits from increasing over the next decade or two.
It would be unfair, and unnecessary, to leave tens of millions of people uninsured while we wait to figure out ways to hold down the rise in health care costs. -
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Beau78901 week, 3 days ago
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This link should get you past the registration page if you're already registered. I'm not sure if it will if you're not:
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/opinion/15sun1.h... -
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cowboygrandpa1 week, 2 days ago
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I'm no expert on health care.
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But it seems to me we have gotten far to dependent upon doctors and specialists.
People have a sore throat they run to the doctor.
People have a cold they run to the doctor.
I don't remember running to the doctor for every little thing.
Damn, if I did I'd be at the doctors office or hospital more than at home.
And yes, I get colds, I have aches and pains, some that are miserable. But hey that is just part of life.
You want to bring down costs, start charging a premium to those who run to the doctor with every little problem.
By all means, transfer the medical files into a computer based format.
Then if a patient is shown to be hypochondriac make them wait and charge them for faking it.
I mean people are so scared and the ads keep telling them to go see their doctor if they have this or that.
Man up people. Health care is needed, but not at the levels it is abused at currently.
We need more nurse practioners and local clinics as well.
Just my take on it.-
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rimbaud1 week, 2 days ago
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One alternative is to cover everyone but only for major medical expenses... Make the deductible $5000. If you have to pay for doctor's visits for minor problems, maybe you'll go less often. The down-side is you might also avoid preventive care and routine diagnostic tests (like mammograms): maybe these can be included in your coverage.
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beavith11 week, 2 days ago
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that's the basis for Health Savings Accounts, for which we get none under this current plan.
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CBGP is right.
Beau. how can this save money or be less expensive? its mathematically impossible.
for example: if health care for 260M costs us X, and we add 40M to that 260M, how can health care now be X- (something else)?
taxing cadillac plans. this isn't going to make health care any cheaper. its nothing more than a funding method to help pay for HC for the masses. its the same sort of faulty reasoning that the 'wealthy should pay their fair share mentality.'
simplified forms, electronic medical records and reform of the delivery system are truly reforms, but they fall under that same thing we hear at every election. 'we're going to wring waste from the system'. at some point, you have to realize that its nothing more than smoke up our skirt. will it save money? sure, but a pittance when you compare it to the total value of 16% of our total economy.
i can 'buy' a health care reform package. but not this one.-
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Beau78901 week, 2 days ago
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Health savings accounts only work for people who have income.
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Costs per person will be less under the proposed reforms. Which means individuals will spend a smaller percentage of their take-home pay on healthcare. As I said above: "The goal of cost reduction is to keep healthcare costs from increasing at a faster pace than incomes and revenues." The goal isn't to make the overall cost of healthcare cheaper than it is now--that'd only be possible under a single-payer system, which would send you into apoplectic fits. You understand economics--you know this.
Yes, taxing "Cadillac" plans will help pay for those who can't afford to pay for their own healthcare. Without that, those costs are spread among everyone. I wouldn't call the reasoning having the wealthy pay their "fair share"--what's a "fair share" is debatable. I'd call it simple pragmatism--the wealthy can afford to pay a little more to cover the poor. The poor can't.
The simplified forms, electronic medical records, reform of the delivery system and other administrative changes are estimated by the CBO to increase federal revenues by $14 billion and lower direct spending by $10 billion. Of course that's not a large percentage of the $2.4 trillion annual cost of healthcare. But because there are so many other savings built into the plans, that $24 billion helps. Reforms to reduce waste and fraud from Medicare, with specific and detailed outlines in the bill, are estimated to save $169 billion.
HSAs aren't going to lower anyone's costs from the system we now pay, and they'd add administrative expenses. Tort reform has been estimated to save only $60 billion over 10 years--likely at the expense of those who actually need money for necessary care after egregious medical mistakes. Those ideas wouldn't be more than a pittance either--what others do you have that might actually take a big chunk out of that 16% of GDP? -
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truthiness1 week, 1 day ago
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for example: if health care for 260M costs us X, and we add 40M to that 260M, how can health care now be X- (something else)?
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think of it this way. if I buy 2 slices of pizza for $2.00 and you do as well that's $4.00
but if 4 of us buy a pizza pie of 8 slices for $7, that's more people and more slices for more total money, yet it only costs us $$1.75 for 2 slices each.
now if that pizza company raises its prices, individually it will be $3.00 for 2 slices. but $9 for the pie equaling $2.25 per person for 2 slices.
this is called economies of scale. the more you buy at once, the cheaper per item.
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