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Health Care

Postby BeerCur on Sat Jun 09, 2012 5:11 am

Something I wrote back in 2010 during the height of the Health Care debate passage. The Supreme Court will probably overturn the individual mandate and potentially the whole darn thing, and we'll be back at square one in fixing the mess. :scratch:

Health care as it currently stands is a mess without hope of improvement without "help". We can do better by working around the fringes, such as forced modernization of health care computer systems and information processes. The recent bills that have been passed are a start for the basic right of health care, but to really make a difference we ultimately have two choices to "fix" the system.

One we have a single payer system that dictates terms and payments for the vast majority of the health care system. If you want better or supplemental insurance you can have it, but you pay for it out of pocket. It's the way most every other industrialized country does it and those systems are widely accepted to be superior to our system in cost containment and medical effectiveness. It is socialized medicine and there are down sides to it. For instance hospice care will be provided at the end, instead of a surgical triple lindy, but at the end it's still basically the end even if a person is kept alive for a bit longer.

Two we have a transparent system that forces hospitals to post all medical procedure and care cost, on a non partisan website, and the discounts currently provided to insurance company must be prohibited. The government would subsidize lower income individuals and families to help pay for private coverage and provide additional tax breaks to all through HSA and such. To make it work though, there has to be a mandated high deductible such as 10% to 25% of all medical bills, to force people to decline unnecessary procedures, medicines, and / or to shop around for better deals. Nearly 1/3 of all money spent by insurance companies goes towards administration cost. It includes the millions they pay in bonuses to executives, but mostly it goes towards a workforce of professional health care administrators and representatives negotiating deals with individual hospitals for a discount off the hospital's list price, and people making sure the correct forms have been filled out correctly. The consumer with the insurance doesn't really care how much it cost or the widespread waste and the uninsured cannot afford the actual list price. It's an incredible unfair and stupid way to run a business, but then again it hasn't been a real competitive industry for quiet some time, if ever.

There are a lot of people with vested interest who are against efficiency and cost cutting measures and they will oppose anything that threatens to tip-over the status quo and their comfortable livelihoods. There is also another side that is afraid of the recent change because they fear the government will screw it up even more. However lacking a strong governmental influence that dictates health care terms and maybe cost, we have no hope of getting this train back on the tracks. Insurance will continue to outstrip inflation, companies will drop coverage to remain competitive here and around the world or go bankrupt (like GM). More people will continue to lose coverage, and hospitals and doctors will deal with increasing number of patients that wait until they have emergencies to seek out care (expensive) and who can not pay. Something has to be done, and fighting for the status quo or some pie in the sky Adam Smith invisible hand fixing the system just does not deal with the issues and the implosion of the system around the corner. Say what you want about the recently past bills, there is a lot not like about them (especially possible cost), but it's a framework to build a better system around at least, and maybe employ the above methods of cost containment in the future. I really hope the schleps who opposed this process for political gain do not benefit from doing so in the mid term elections (2010), but they probably will... Sad, but politics as usual.
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