Interesting comparison in costs of health care here.
Medicynical Note: Argument in favor of these costs is that we, an altruistic nation, pay more to encourage innovation.
Argument against is that we are suckers, padding the profits of international and domestic corporations who don’t give a damn about health care. Our non-system is simply the least efficient and most costly in the world.
Take your pick.
Posted in General Cynicism, Health Economics
Health Affairs has an article Comparing our private, for large profit, health insurers with those elsewhere. The study compared insurance experiences in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, the U.S. and United Kingdom. No surprises:
Overall, the study found significant differences in access, cost burdens, and problems with health insurance that are associated with insurance design. US adults were the most likely to incur high medical expenses, even when insured, and to spend time on insurance paperwork and disputes or to have payments denied. Germans reported spending time on paperwork at rates similar to US rates but were well protected against out-of-pocket spending. Swiss out-of-pocket spending was high, yet few Swiss had access concerns or problems paying bills.
The United States is the only country in which one-fifth of adults reported serious problems paying health care bills. In contrast, at most 9 percent of adults in other countries (8 percent Australia and 9 percent France) reported serious problems paying bills.
Medicynical Note: Yes our approach is unique and dysfunctional and mirrors a culture in which 80% believe in miracles: in which a large proportion, perhaps a majority doubt evolution; in which a near majority deny global warming as an increasing problem; in which large numbers of people don’t want to mandate health insurance coverage but want all possible treatment available at little or no cost when illness occurs.
Welcome to the home of magical thinking.
Posted in General Cynicism
This from Health Care For America.
The six largest investor owned health insurance companies recorded huge profit gains in the third quarter of 2010 by spending a smaller share of premiums on medical care, purging unprofitable members and burdening consumers with higher cost-sharing limits.
The companies, Wellpoint Inc., United Health Group Inc., Aetna inc., Humana inc., Cigna Corp and Coventry Health Care
made combined profits of $3.4 billion in the three months ending Sept. 30.
Medicynical Note: The money came, in part, from reducing the proportion of premiums spent on health care–Coventry is down to 76.8%, Aetna at 80.5%.
In 1993 95% of premium dollars went for health care. By 2007 the average amount spent on care was down to about 80%,
In comparison with other industrialized nations:
Performance on measures of health system efficiency remains especially low, with the U.S. scoring 53 out of 100 on measures gauging inappropriate, wasteful, or fragmented care; avoidable hospitalizations; variation in quality and costs; administrative costs; and use of information technology. Lowering insurance administrative costs alone could save up to $100 billion a year at the lowest country rates.
Only in America would such inefficiency tolerated. Amazing.
Posted in General Cynicism, Health Economics
This chart is adapted from the CBO studies of health reform and the republican non- plan and was published in the Incidental Economist.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is Health Reform. The GOP plan is non-existent, with results about the same as doing nothing, which is exactly what it is–a new version of “let them eat cake.” Of course the GOP non-plan and the current non-system relies on “free” cake (care) provided by ER’s which really isn’t free. Guess who ultimately pays and guess why our health care costs twice as much as elsewhere–in part.
Posted in General Cynicism
BMW has recently increased employment at their Greer South Carolina plant.
Among the applicants: a former manager of a major distribution center for Target, a consultant who oversaw construction projects in four Western states and a supervisor at a plastics-recycling firm. Some held college degrees and résumés in other fields where they made more money.
But they’re all in the factory now making $15 an hour — about half of what the typical German autoworker makes.
it’s a fact that ;
the price of having a more globally competitive work force means more in America could fall well short of the middle-class living standards that manufacturing workers once could expect. Wages adjusted for inflation have declined for these workers since 2003.
Medicynical note: A salary of $15/hour approximates $30,000/year–half the average and median income in the states. Think any of these employees will be able to afford a BMer? Or even a $20,000 Chevy? High deductibles on health care?
Posted in General Cynicism
The deficit commission’s solution to our debt is to cut taxes, mostly for the wealthy, now and tax the benefits of our children and grandchildren.
Brave? Creative? NO
Posted in General Cynicism
It’s remarkable how shortsighted American businesses are. Their Chamber of Commerce is on record as opposing health reform. Given the cost of providing employees health insurance one would think they would be supportive of reform efforts, particularly if they removed health insurance as an employee benefit, as is the case in most industrialized countries.
Consider the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler due in part to health insurance costs; consider also Starbucks which provides health care for employees, “a line item that tallies $300 million. That’s more than the company spends on coffee.”
Medicynical note: In other countries businesses don’t have to factor the health coverage burden into their planning, or costs. It’s another of those incomprehensible inefficiencies that is uniquely American.
Posted in Ethics, General Cynicism
More evidence that our health care institutions are failing, at health care.
Medicynical note: I’m speechless.
Posted in General Cynicism
The issue of testing advances for efficacy and value in health care is one of the sticking points for our conservative friends. They oppose such testing and feel that everyone should have infinite choices, no matter the cost or limited efficacy. And Medicare and many other insurers should simply pay and pass through the additional costs. How else to interpret their criticism of comparison testing and evaluation of efficacy in the health reform bill–and the cost savings built into it.
There is however a voice of reason somewhere. (Financial Times November 7, 2010)
But the principle is justified: a centralised body is needed systematically to assess whether a drug offers therapeutic advantages and is cost-effective. Otherwise, in a health system with finite funding, such treatments will squeeze out others offering better outcomes.
In practice, Nice should be involved in establishing value too. Its role could be extended to rule on what constitutes a fair price at the time of launch with periodic amendments as greater clinical use better demonstrates value.
Medicynical note: Of course in the U.S. we don’t have finite funding. We think it’s perfectly all right to spend twice as much as other industrialized countries per capita on health care and eat up almost 20% of GDP. Value in medicine? An archaic concept when the profits of the medical industrial complex are involved.
Posted in General Cynicism, Health Economics
A series on health care quality in the United States, here. Read the series and weep!
Posted in General Cynicism
Medicynic 