A Major Intervention: Fixing the Health Care System

[TexasTowelie]

By Dr. Brian Carr
Chairman, City of Lubbock Board of Health

Two years into the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) we continue to witness a battle. While millions have been able to obtain health coverage (including myself) we see a continued push by Republicans to defeat and repeal the law. At the same time it is clear that there are problems in healthcare delivery independent of the issue of how it is paid for.

As noted by Steve Brill in the January 19th issue of Time magazine America’s total health care bill for 2014 was $3 trillion dollars. That’s more than the next 10 biggest spenders combined: Japan, Germany, France, China, the U.K., Italy, Canada, Brazil, Spain and Australia. We spend $17 billion a year on artificial knees and hips, which is 55% more than Hollywood takes in at the box office. We’ve created a system in which 1.5 million people work in the health-insurance industry while barely half as many doctors provide the actual care.

And all those high-tech advances-pacemakers, MRIs, 3-D mammograms-have produced an ironically upside-down health care marketplace. It is the only industry in which technological advances have increased costs instead of lowering them.

Our contemporary healthcare system is the largest industry, employing a sixth of the country’s workforce. At the individual level it is a citizen’s largest single expense. As with many forces in the marketplace today it is necessary to understand the dynamics of politics, profit, and ideology.

Read more, including suggested regulatory actions to reduce the cost of providing health services at:
http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/dr-brian-carr/2015-03-17/major-intervention-fixing-health-care-system#.VQiBuuHy1Z9

[Hoyt]

1. That is a good article and Obamacare provided the incentives for a lot of that. I would love to see

it happen, but government will have to ride herd because hospitals and doctors ain't gonna give up their profits easily. Today, hospitals are buying up medical practices as fast as they can and are charging more for simple services than privately practicing doctors ever did.

Healthcare is a big mess. Even programs like Medicare have a lot of gaps in coverage, and abuses. Most of the suggestions in the linked article are probably a good start, but our Congress will just screw it up more.

[Yonx]

2. Improvements are welcome

The system is much, much better now than it was prior to this administration. But yes, some improvements are welcome to make it even stronger.