Reply With Quote
Should mogrovejo acquire any more, it raises the question just how many lame legs his arguments are dragging along.
I doubt the geographic location matters. I think the rule that one can't keep overspending forever is applicable regardless of the la ude.
Should mogrovejo acquire any more, it raises the question just how many lame legs his arguments are dragging along.
There is the whole cultural thing in Europe...you know...they're kinda not like us in some ways.
OMFG.
morgrovejo, the argumentative, octoplegic spider.
Mandates seem to have lowered costs in Hawaii, and also gave insurers the leeway to try new methods and programs of coverage.
bork! bork! bork!
I think we have to be careful in how we measure costs in these arguements.
Costs to whom, for instance? Are the cost savings realized or are they simply shifted expenditures?
I say this because I recently read a study (and I'm searching like to find it) that projected the conglomerate costs, that is all costs together, to be slightly higher under a classic, universal plan. The reason behind this...for example........you're now undertaking millions of mammograms more than before. Yes, you will most likely catch more breast cancer cases earlier...bystepping costly chemo and surgical costs. But those savings would not offset the additional costs of the mammograms.
The benefit is in health and access. If we can do it and almost break even, that would be awesome. If we could do it with a net cost approaching what we spend now, then I think it would be a slam dunk. I don't think we could ever do it and actually realize savings, and I don't think that should be the focus.
I like your good, better, average projections.
Tell me, whats the worst that could happen?
My money is on healthcare breaking the country financially. Rather quickly, too. Say...less than 15 years?
Unless of course we stop waging foreign wars and spending a zillion times more on our military than every other country combined, healthcare, IMO, is the end game of the US's financial viability.
Personally, I think we hit critical mass < 10 years.
"If we could do it with a net cost approaching what we spend now"
Will NEVER happen, because that would mean delivering more total care to millions more people for the same cost.
What also will never happen is Americans of all social levels taking care of themselves. 100s of $Bs every year are "wasted" on treating people with self-inflicted life-style diseases.
$200B year = cost of obesity and obesity-worsened co-morbities.
400K smoking/lung cancer deaths/year at probably well over $100K cost each for end-of-life care.
Point noted. One of the tenants of universal care would be examining the cost of treatment. Lots of oxen to be gored in that fight. I don't have any real expertise in the treatment arena, that is, the methodology of doctors and hospital as they determine treatment scenarios. I know there are some damning indicators that beg examination for cost efficiency. The utter opacity of treatment costs for example. Market forces, which can actually do some good, could help drive treatment cost reductions if we actually knew how much that ing tonsilectomy was going to cost before we went to the hospital A. Hospital B might be a couple of grand cheaper. But today, we have no clue.
I do have some expertise in pharmaceutical pricing and contracts. I can tell you right now, with a high degree of certainty, that a universal cost structure could save billions. There is no compelling reason why Hospital A has to pay $5 for a bottle of Tylenol, when Hospital B, using a different GPO pays $3.75. That pricing differential is what drives pharmaceutical profits in a big way...that and the collusion between pharma and GPOs. I think it is indeed possible to approach today's costs in a universal plan. , boutons, we're already covering some of those costs today as uninsured hit the ER's with their ailments.
"the cost of treatment"
AMA and docs are already fighting ANY reduction in medicare/medicaid fees, and many docs already won't accept any medicare/medicaid patients.
Other docs won't deal with any insurance and demand cash upon delivery, and YOU fight with the govt or private insurer for reimbursements.
The health care providers and insurers have simply priced themselves out of reach millions of citizens. The ONLY way this will be resolved is through forceful govt intervention.
iow, to repeat ad nauseam, the health care system is broken, and it AIN'T the govt's fault.
Even shielding all providers from malpractice and allowing interstate insurance sales won't fix the system.
I read an article about last year where some group like the American College of Surgeons polled their members and 50% said they wouldn't choose medicine again.
BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN
The US is really ed up in this and other very serious ways.
Obviously. And I believe that's a very relevant factor, often overlooked, to explain the difference on health-care costs. Culturally dictated consumer preferences are extremely difficult to measure but they exist. For example, different tastes are an explaining factor on why Americans work more than Europeans - Americans tend to prefer consumption to leisure relatively to Europeans, so Europeans tend to use productivity raise to increase leisure rather than income, while the U.S. has done the opposite.There is the whole cultural thing in Europe...you know...they're kinda not like us in some ways.
OMFG.
And there are factors with mixed causes - the difference on medical personnel salaries is partially explained by the predominance of subsidized college education in Europe plus a much less litigation oriented society. Something that should give pause to those who believe that controlling this kind of costs is something short of an extremely complicated and utopian adventure.
Olivier Blanchard, the French economist from MIT who's now the chief economist at the IMF, has published loads of work on the issue of how cultural preferences affect economic choices in Europe vs. America.
However, there's one thing that, as I've been saying, that works the same way in Europe, America, Africa or Asia: you can't keep on spending wealth you don't create forever.
In France, physicians are leaving the French public health-care system like there's no tomorrow and joining the private sector. Universal health care means some different form of rationing - decided by politicians.
Last edited by mogrovejo; 02-05-2010 at 06:44 PM.
Numbers, please.
Where are they all going?
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
