Reasons Behind Rising Health Costs?
Nancy Collins
Based on the February 2005 Kaiser Family Foundation Health Poll Report, 1,200 respondents were asked to rate the factors they believe to be driving healthcost cost increases. The results were interesting.
- High profits made by drug companies 69%
- Greed and waste 62%
- Aging population 55%
- Number of malpractice suits 54%
- Use of expensive technology 46%
- Absence of incentives to hunt for lower-cost doctors and services 39%
It is interesting to note that these respondents represent the general population at large and not individuals experiencing the highest cost impact for drugs and health care services. Their perception is that costs are driven by greed and waste. In actuality, the last four reasons -- aging population, use of expensive technology, absence of incentives to hunt for lower-cost services and the number of malpractice suits -- are the real drivers behind health care cost increases. Source: www.kff.org
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(Tom Hajny, Mon, Jun 13, 2005)
See NY Times Paul Krugman on Single Payer System as need for addressing HC costs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/13/opinion/13krugman.html?th&emc=th
TGH
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(kizard, Wed, Jun 1, 2005)
I think one of the unintened consequences of mangaed care is that it took the patient as consumer out of the medical decision making loop. Once upon a time, patients paid their doctor directly for medical services, and the provider was accountable solely to the patient. Once the patient's EMPLOYER became responsible for the bill, the focus shifted to a new master. And since employers' managed care afiliation changes now days based on premium costs, the one consistent, and therefore, dominant master is managed care. Truely the medical community has changed its entire way of billing, and subsequently coding and charting based on how it is to be recieved by its payors. It is not much of a stretch to posit that providers have changed the way they conduct their patient visits based on the reimbursement rules. And once this happens, our patients realize that they are no longer the most importnat person in the room, and they chalk the change up to greediness. The medical community needs to invite the patient back into the loop, and then let the patient/consumer dictate how it will practice. They will decide if they really want expensive new technologies (or medications) when it DIRECTLY cost them something. One way to do this is through Health Savings Accounts and fee-for-service.
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