How to fix: Health care

[JJR512]

How to fix: Health care

Health-care costs in this country have risen from 5% of national productivity 50 years ago to 16% now, and it's just going to get worse as baby boomers hit retirement age over the next few years.
#mediaarticle #articleBody #segment {HEIGHT: 1100px!Important}
To put it in terms your wallet can understand, the average American family of four now faces health-care costs -- including insurance -- of $14,500 a year. That's about a third of median household income.

Employers are increasingly unwilling to eat the bill. General Motors says that it already has about $1,400 in medical costs priced into every vehicle.

And most families can't do it on their own.

So 47 million Americans now lack health-care insurance.

...
Create more choice. Medicare now covers about 40 million seniors, gets high marks for customer satisfaction and whips the private sector on efficiency. Private insurers spend six times as much on administration, proportionally -- mostly to weed out costly customers or fight payment.

...
Stop fixating on how to cut benefits. Everybody just gets mad when insurers come between patients and doctors. Doctors waste huge amounts of time fighting back, and insurance companies dump billions of dollars down the drain trying to cut costs through "managed care." A smarter approach, according to Harvard economist David Cutler, is to spend more for good stuff that works.

...
Pay for performance.
...
Make health insurance more portable.
...
Cut some patient co-pays -- but boost others.
...
Tear up the paper.
...

Complete article at http://articles.moneycentral.msn.co...Savings/HowToFixHealthCare.aspx#pageTopAnchor

 

[Meursault]

Yay! Somebody else opened this can of worms!

The first four points list the benefits of fee-for-service medicine and then try to achieve them with insurance companies. Patients controlling their own health care spending will do a better job of creating choice, adequately compensating doctors, and rewarding quality care, not to mention the increased portability. Of course, health insurance will still be needed to cover unexpected events, but why make it the primary payer?

I'm not sure there are easy solutions to providing health care for the poor/chronically ill. Policymakers need to realize, though, that what works for a low-income single mother probably isn't optimal for a more affluent couple with no children and vice versa. One-size-fits-all health plans lead to massive bureaucratic bloat, high spending, and frequently decreased quality of care. Look at dental care under Britain's NHS, for example.

 

[BossyCow]

There was a doc in New England somewhere that had quit billing insurance. She was charging her pt.s a flat fee per minute of time spent with them and took cash/check only. She said she cut her costs of doing business and improved her bottom line. Turns out a good portion of her business was working for the insurance company. This was a few years back and I've often wondered if she still works under that system and how her pts responded to it long-term. She would give them the paperwork to file for reimbursement from their insurance company, but would not bill the ins. directly.