Dr. Theodore Levy explains how a decline in our health care system could happen a little at a time, so citizens might not even realize the cause of their problems.
Archive for the ‘health care costs’ Category
Capretta: Health care consumers need choice, power
Thursday, July 15th, 2010
Jim Capretta, speaking at today’s Galen Institute briefing introducing his paper “Why the Obama Plan Is Not Entitlement Reform,” made these points:
- If there was one consensus point during the health care debate over the past year, it was that Medicare is the main driver in health care costs.
- Medicare, which he called “maddeningly costly,” creating “excess paperwork, a bureaucracy, and low-quality and uncoordinated care for patients,” will look much the same many years from now–despite “health care reform.”
- If we really want health care delivery reform, the way to get there is to empower consumers to pick high-value, lower-cost options. That can be done through vouchers. Competition in the health care industry will increase, especially those trying to win the business of older Americans.
- Medicare is riddled with waste and inefficiency. The fastest solution is to give consumers choice rather than saying government will clean up the system.
Time to take ‘Bad Medicine’
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
The Cato Institute’s Michael D. Tanner has written a white paper on the new health care law. “Bad Medicine: A Guide to the Real Costs and Consequences of the New Health Law” is available here. Below is the executive summary.
For better or worse, President Obama’s health care reform bill is now law. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act represents the most significant transformation of the American health care system since Medicare and Medicaid. It will fundamentally change nearly every aspect of health care, from insurance to the final delivery of care.
The length and complexity of the legislation, combined with a debate that often generated more heat than light, has led to massive confusion about the law’s likely impact. But, it is now possible to analyze what is and is not in it, what it likely will and will not do. In particular, we now know that:
- While the new law will increase the number of Americans with insurance coverage, it falls significantly short of universal coverage. By 2019, roughly 21 million Americans will still be uninsured.
- The legislation will cost far more than advertised, more than $2.7 trillion over 10 years of full implementation, and will add $352 billion to the national debt over that period.
- Most American workers and businesses will see little or no change in their skyrocketing insurance costs, while millions of others, including younger and healthier workers and those who buy insurance on their own through the non-group market will actually see their premiums go up faster as a result of this legislation.
- The new law will increase taxes by more than $669 billion between now and 2019, and the burdens it places on business will significantly reduce economic growth and employment.
- While the law contains few direct provisions for rationing care, it nonetheless sets the stage for government rationing and interference with how doctors practice medicine.
- Millions of Americans who are happy with their current health insurance will not be able to keep it. In short, the more we learn about what is in this new law, the more it looks like bad news for American taxpayers, businesses, health-care providers, and patients.
No surprise to us: Primary care docs disappearing
Monday, July 5th, 2010Writes the Associated Press’s Carla K. Johnson on July 2:
Emergency rooms are the only choice for patients who can’t find care elsewhere. They may grow even more crowded under the nation’s new health law.
That may come as a surprise to those who thought getting 32 million more people covered by health insurance would ease ER crowding.
But experts predict a shortage [of] primary care doctors will force many newly insured patients to visit emergency rooms for their health care.
That shortage was predicted all along and, thanks to Medicaid-Medicare short payments, has been a problem for years now. This is only a surprise to anybody who hasn’t been paying attention.
Mandates to cause rise in health insurance costs
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010Michael F. Cannon of the Cato Institute points out that health insurance premiums will be going up between 1 and 7 percent for Americans thanks to the new health care law:
All told, ObamaCare’s unlimited-coverage mandates will increase the premiums of affected consumers by an average of about 1 percent, and as much as 7 percent for some consumers. Or maybe more: the administration acknowledges that a “paucity of data” about the impact of these mandates means that there is “tremendous,” “substantial,” and “considerable” uncertainty about the mandates’ costs.
Yet another reason to be thankful for the health care sharing ministry exemption.
What gov’t health care looks like
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute offers this commentary on a recent LA Times piece about the Veterans Health Administration:
The Obama administration sold — well, it pitched ObamaCare to the public with this promise: “It’s time we put the health of American families back in the hands of consumers – not the insurance industry.”
The Veterans Health Administration shows how incompetent the federal government is when it comes to making medicine a patient-centered enterprise. After decades of mistreating veterans, the VHA achieved some successes in the past decade or so, such as adopting electronic medical records and improving on some measures of quality. Yet serious deficiencies remain. Today’s Los Angeles Times reports that the VA’s disability system is a nightmare for soldiers and sailors disabled in combat.
Innovation, we hardly knew ye
Tuesday, May 25th, 2010John Graham of Pacific Research Institute points out in this blog post that innovation in the medical field is likely to suffer in the hands of the government:
It’s hard not to get excited about entrepreneurs who are founding companies and developing technologies – like a headband that people with sleep apnea wear in bed, which captures certain vital signs that can be downloaded to a doctor’s office for diagnosis.
But it’s also disheartening to learn that their success depends on the government, specifically the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, approving the service for reimbursement.
Do you think that we’d have microwave ovens, automatic transmissions, DVD players, or mountain bikes today if the people who invented them, or the people who wanted to use them, had to wait for a government agency to decide how much to pay for them and who deserved to use them?
Government now controls about half of all the dollars spent on Americans’ health care. It’s amazing that we have any innovation and entrepreneurship at all.
