Paying for health care is not rocket science! By Jack Lohman

[Demeter]

OpEdNews

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_jack_loh_071014_paying_for_health_ca.htm


Where are our heads?

It never ceases to amaze me, the amount of energy that can go into a project just to avoid doing the right thing, and reforming health care is at the top of that list.

The best, simplest, least costly, most effective thing we could do is expand what has been working so well for 50 years, Medicare. You get sick, you get care, and the caregiver gets paid. Guaranteed. Nothing could be simpler. Simple is inexpensive and simple doesn't break, while complexity is very costly to administer.

Churchill had it right when he said "Americans will always do the right thing, but only after everything else has failed."

Some things are best handled by the government, and establishing one nationwide pool of patients is in the best interest of the country. Medicare is not perfect, but it is far better than the 1500 insurance companies we have, and their 15,000 variations on insurance plans. Isn't one plan enough, where all people get all necessary care? Or are people expected to know ahead of time what type of care they should insure against?

Worse are all of the unnecessary expenses insurers add to both the hospital and clinic side -- like extra billing clerks -- and on the insurer's side, like their costs for marketing, sales commissions, actuarial and cherry-picking, gatekeeping, high executive and CEO salaries and bonuses, and ever-increasing shareholder profits. Even their lobbying and campaign contributions are paid for by the patient.

None of these costs are imposed on Medicare.

And, no, Medicare isn't socialized medicine. It uses the same private hospitals and doctors as everyone else, though it eliminates the above middleman insurance bureaucracy that unnecessarily consumes 31% of the costs. For the same amount of dollars we are spending to care for 85% of the public today, we could provide first-class care to 100% of the people. And we could do it without wait times, rationing, healthcare bankruptcies, or losses of homes or retirement savings because of catastrophic illnesses. Canada spends 10% of GDP compared to our 16% -- which is projected to rise to 20% by 2015 -- yet they cover 100% of patients compared to our 85%. Why can't we?...





Authors Website: www.MoneyedPoliticians.com

Authors Bio: Lohman is a retired business owner and is author of "Politicians - Owned and Operated by Corporate America" (www.MoneyedPoliticians.com) and author of http://MoneyedPoliticians.net

[GOPBasher]

1. This is what I keep saying. But the top three Dem candidates are not

supporting a single-payer, national health insurance. It's sad. Their plans are good, certainly much better than we have, but they'll be much more expensive.

[RC]

2. Yeah, but...

If we did that our unemployment rate would triple, what with all the suddenly unemployed insurance company rank and file needed to keep the current system working. They're needed to funnel the big bucks to the Board and CEO. We can't have them out of a job. How'd the trickle down get up to trickle down?

[DavidDvorkin]

3. Nothing is rocket science

http://eyeblister.blogspot.com/2007/10/its-not-rocket-science.html

[justgamma]

4. John Edwards healthcare plan.

"Creating regional "Health Care Markets" to let every American share the bargaining power to purchase an affordable, high-quality health plan, increase choices among insurance plans, and cut costs for businesses offering insurance."

In the fliers he passed out, he said that "at least one plan would be based on Medicare. Over time, the system may evolve into single payer approach if the public plan offers better care at a better price".

He knows that this is a gradual plan, but he's realistic about the fact that the pukes will never go along with single payer.

I don't know why he doesn't put the whole thing on his website. Maybe he doesn't want to scare the pukes.

[Demeter]

5. Thanks Gamma

This is new to me. I can see that Edwards has the diplomatic skills to lead the ignorant thirsty to water and get them to drink....

[WeCanWorkItOut]

6. Not complicated? And last week's San Francisco Bay Area nurses' strike

Unfortunately, I think the health story is more complicated than many good, public-spirited people realize. The question is, has the press really covered health issues well enough for us to understand what we should? Do we know what we need to know to take on the hard issues? I don't think so.

For instance, the "31% on administration" --many have heard that statistic. (I've also heard 25% for California, see Health Affairs,2005, James Hahn.) But how much do the Canadians spend on administration? I've heard 16 or 17%, but that's not a statistic that makes it into debate as much.

The point is, that administrative costs matter, but they are far from being the whole story of why our health care system is such a burden on working people. They are certainly not the only reason our system costs twice as much as the French system. But I don't think most people know that. It's not something the media cares about.

To give an example of what's not adequately covered, there's also the problem of our excessively expensive hospitals, whose costs have been going up even faster than pharmaceuticals recently. The use of generic drugs is bringing pharma costs down somewhat. But the costs of hospitals--what is being done about that? Here the San Francisco nurses' strike involved, among other things, a large medical group (not an HMO) closing another hospital in SF. Is this closure just lowering costs? Or is it increasing the monopoly power of hospitals, on the rise since 1997? And is it making life harder, especially for the city's elderly? I think we need better media coverage of these issues.

We have to be willing to take on the hard issues of costs ourselves. Otherwise, it will be very hard for our candidate, whoever she or he may be, to stand up against the enormous pressures the health industry lobbies will bring to bear.

[AdHocSolver]

7. In corporate-owned America, public health will not stand in the way of corporate profits.

Any plan that pits improving health care for americans against reducing profits for the health care industry is just not going to happen.

Medicare for all is the way to go to provide affordable health care for all Americans. Properly set up, it would actually reduce the cost of health care and still cover everyone in the country, because it could be set up to eliminate the rampant waste, fraud, and enormous profits that go to the corporations under the current system.

Instead of costing more money to have a single payer system, I maintain that the overall cost of health care would decrease, even while providing coverage for all.

The drug companies spend far more money on advertising and promotional schemes than they do on research. Most drug research is paid for from your tax dollars funneled through government agencies such as the National Institute of Health. Eliminating the drug advertising on television alone would save hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, every year. Then there is the direct advertising to doctors as well as promotions such as sponsoring conventions in the Bahamas, gifts, "rebates", etc. Add to these costs, the huge profit margins, since there is no one to negotiate a lower price for volume purchases, and there is an enormous potential for reducing drug costs by billions of dollars a year.

Everyone knows about the waste, duplication, and plain robbery committed by the health insurance industry, so I won't discuss that here. However, little attention is paid to the problems and excessive cost associated with the medical industry. Having worked in a hospital many years ago, I am truly amazed at the amount of trust and confidence placed in the health care industry.

Most hospitals that I have knowledge of are not run by doctors. The hospital I worked in was run by a guy with a masters degree in health care administration. In fact, all the top management in the place were bean counters. Their primary concerns were keeping costs down and marketing. At the same time they denied the cardiology department $2,000 for a new EKG machine and a new defibrillator, both of which had issues, they were spending over $2,000,000 on all new remote-controlled electrically operated hospital beds so that the patients would see how up-to-date the hospital was medically.

A local medical conglomerate wants to build a new satellite hospital in a suburb that already has a hospital. It isn't because there is a need for more hospital beds. It is "to promote competition." Translation: they want to steal patients from the other hospital. If they build it, the new hospital will charge more to pay off the debt incurred to build the new hospital. The existing hospital will raise rates to cover the income from the patients it lost. So much for competition saving the consumer money.

One last bit of information. It has been estimated that 50,000 to 80,000 people die in hospitals every year due to hospital induced problems. "The operation was a success, but the patient died." The cause, in many cases, was a drug-resistant infection that the patient picked up in the hospital. I include this bit of information because the medical profession is always claiming that the reason health care costs so much in the U.S. is because it is the best in the world. Don't you believe it. The reason health care costs so much is because hospitals are run by bean counters for profit, and that includes the so-called "nonprofits".

P.S. I almost forgot to point out that the insurance companies, drug companies, and many hospitals and medical clinics are owned by the same corporate entities. They are linked through investments in each other, and by investment companies who own stock in insurance companies, drug companies, and hospitals. They make profit from all these investments. A single payer system would not only remove profit from insurance companies, but such a system could negotiate lower fees to hospitals and drug companies, as well. Don't hold your breath.