Two articles in today'[s New York Times referenced health care costs on the reform bill. Stating that the reform bill focused on health care access, rather than cost-control. Jonathan Bush opined that health reform will be cost-expansionary. But Andrea Sisko, the main author of a government report predicted modest effects on the growth of health care cost to accompany a marked increase in access as more than 30 million people gain insurance coverage, although the article citing her report notes that growth in health care spending will increase from its 17.3 percent of the gross domestic product to 19.6 percent in 9 years.
Will our government be forced - by economic realities - to make new changes to health care coverage, limiting benefits for conditions now covered, imposing age barriers to obtaining palliative or even curative therapies, or barring individuals from health care coverage for conditions which they developed as a result of damage which they self-imposed, such as the use of drugs, high risk sexual behavior, abuse of alcohol, and perhaps even consuming types and quantities of foods known to increase the risk of diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, obesity related joint disease and other conditions? Will government move towards pragmatic limits which will reduce scientific research, impose restrictions which favor the young and healthy, and make individuals primarily responsible for the consequences of lifestyle decisions which end-up costing society money?
Who will judge and who will be judged? Who will live and who will die?
Who by Fire?
Showing posts with label Health Care Reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Health Care Reform. Show all posts
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
We Don't Need No ***** Health Care Reform
Insurers, pharmaceutical companies, advertising agencies, national hospital associations, and other trade organizations whose influence with Congress now dictates America's response to proposals for health care reform are correct. The system we have works and our ranking in the mid-30s of the worlds nations for our health care quality is adequate since anyone who is truly rich, employed, worthy and well-connected can get all of the health care that he or she needs (provided it is approved by insurance company bureaucrats whose pay and bonuses depend on their success at limiting care and retroactively canceling sick customers' insurance). If Obama's health reform is defeated, as insurers, pharmaceutical companies, advertising agencies have determined is best for the country, the following will be just little bumps in the health care road.
1. Choose to have your heart attack, auto accident or fall from a tall ladder when the hospital emergency departments are not chock-full of those pesky uninsured people who can't afford to get health care from doctors during the day. If you get there in the peak uninsured persons' time, you might have to wait for service for just a few hours.
2. Tell your kids to stay home in front of their computers and TV sets, rather than play with the neighborhood kids because one of those kids might have a cough from infectious tuberculosis which hasn't been treated because his mom and dad aren't working and they don't have health care insurance any more.
3. Fire your babysitter, your gardener, your domestic help and and anyone else who comes to your house because with these low-level jobs it is unlikely they have health insurance and who knows what diseases they could be incubating?
4. Home school your kids so that you can limit their exposure to infectious diseases from some of their unworthy uninsured classmates.
5. Don't ever eat in a restaurant because the kitchen help or the waiters serving you might be sick and might pass the sickness on to you when the food is prepared or served.
6. Never take public transportation (trains, subways, buses, airplanes, ships, ferries, elevators, shared taxis) because the uninsured person sweating and coughing next to you, who couldn't afford to see a doctor about his fever, might have influenza, cancer, cholera, diphtheria or some other awful disease that he contracted but remains undiagnosed and untreated and maybe you'll catch.
7. Be sure to be nice to that woman whose child has just been diagnosed with leukemia but can't have a life-saving bone marrow or stem-cell transplant because the child is uninsured and mom and dad haven't sold off all of their assets yet to qualify for Medicaid.
8. Be sure to avoid that person who mutters to himself and threatens passers-by because he has paranoid schizophrenia but no supervision of his medications and no insurance to pay for them. Soon the police will be along to taser or shoot him, but their services don't come from the health care budget.
9. When they close the hospitals near your home or workplace in the interest of "efficiency" and "saving money," your new employer-provided health insurance may provide a perfectly satisfactory substitute hospital on another continent. staffed by people who might speak your language. On the other hand, your insurer may offer a nurse call service which can tell you how to set a broken arm with stuff your husband has in his garage workshop.
10. When new drugs, devices, technology and procedures are developed they will be available to politicians, bankers, financial people and CEOs under their insurance policies, but unfortunately, not to you and your family.
11. Your new employer-provided health insurance policy may provide for regularly scheduled office visits to the doctor. The new standard visit may be 3 minutes long, of which 2 minutes will be spent by the doctor entering stuff into the computer terminal.
12. Your doctor works from 9-12, 1-5 PM in the office, will not see you in the hospital, and knows nothing about the people who will see you in the hospital including their names, qualifications or experience.
13. All of that money you spent on life insurance will be very-much appreciated by your family.
1. Choose to have your heart attack, auto accident or fall from a tall ladder when the hospital emergency departments are not chock-full of those pesky uninsured people who can't afford to get health care from doctors during the day. If you get there in the peak uninsured persons' time, you might have to wait for service for just a few hours.
2. Tell your kids to stay home in front of their computers and TV sets, rather than play with the neighborhood kids because one of those kids might have a cough from infectious tuberculosis which hasn't been treated because his mom and dad aren't working and they don't have health care insurance any more.
3. Fire your babysitter, your gardener, your domestic help and and anyone else who comes to your house because with these low-level jobs it is unlikely they have health insurance and who knows what diseases they could be incubating?
4. Home school your kids so that you can limit their exposure to infectious diseases from some of their unworthy uninsured classmates.
5. Don't ever eat in a restaurant because the kitchen help or the waiters serving you might be sick and might pass the sickness on to you when the food is prepared or served.
6. Never take public transportation (trains, subways, buses, airplanes, ships, ferries, elevators, shared taxis) because the uninsured person sweating and coughing next to you, who couldn't afford to see a doctor about his fever, might have influenza, cancer, cholera, diphtheria or some other awful disease that he contracted but remains undiagnosed and untreated and maybe you'll catch.
7. Be sure to be nice to that woman whose child has just been diagnosed with leukemia but can't have a life-saving bone marrow or stem-cell transplant because the child is uninsured and mom and dad haven't sold off all of their assets yet to qualify for Medicaid.
8. Be sure to avoid that person who mutters to himself and threatens passers-by because he has paranoid schizophrenia but no supervision of his medications and no insurance to pay for them. Soon the police will be along to taser or shoot him, but their services don't come from the health care budget.
9. When they close the hospitals near your home or workplace in the interest of "efficiency" and "saving money," your new employer-provided health insurance may provide a perfectly satisfactory substitute hospital on another continent. staffed by people who might speak your language. On the other hand, your insurer may offer a nurse call service which can tell you how to set a broken arm with stuff your husband has in his garage workshop.
10. When new drugs, devices, technology and procedures are developed they will be available to politicians, bankers, financial people and CEOs under their insurance policies, but unfortunately, not to you and your family.
11. Your new employer-provided health insurance policy may provide for regularly scheduled office visits to the doctor. The new standard visit may be 3 minutes long, of which 2 minutes will be spent by the doctor entering stuff into the computer terminal.
12. Your doctor works from 9-12, 1-5 PM in the office, will not see you in the hospital, and knows nothing about the people who will see you in the hospital including their names, qualifications or experience.
13. All of that money you spent on life insurance will be very-much appreciated by your family.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
EMBARGOED UNTIL TUESDAY, JUNE 2 THE ECONOMIC CASE FOR HEALTH CARE REFORM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The White House has released its argument supporting its version of health care reform (whatever that version might be). For the link to the entire document, click this blog's title above. Below, are the document's assumption and conclusions. Careful reading will help readers to determine whether this is an analysis based on complete and valid assumptions and whether the sketchy "plan" is more than a preliminary specification for rearrangement of the Titanic's deck chairs, lacking the specificity which would bring the lobbyists for disadvantaged irate major players in health care storming into the capitol.
"Assumptions. In this analysis, we assume that all of the savings to the Federal government take the form of deficit reduction. The assumption is a reasonable approximation. In the absence of reform, rising health care costs will cause unsustainable increases in the deficit. Using the savings from reducing the growth of health care costs to prevent these increases is essential to our long-run fiscal health. This section implicitly assumes that the costs of expanding coverage, which we discuss in the next section, would be covered by budgetary savings above and beyond the “curve benders” that are the focus of this analysis and by revenue increases. This is consistent with the President’s budget, which identified particular savings in the Medicare program and proposed specific revenue measures to pay for health care reform. In addition, over an extended period, the costs of expanded coverage are much smaller than the resources freed up by slowing cost growth. For these reasons, even if a small part of the costs of expanding coverage were paid for out of the savings resulting from slowing cost growth, this would have only a minor effect on the analysis we present....
"VII. CONCLUSION
The American health care system is on an unsustainable path. Expenditures as a share of GDP are already substantially higher than in other developed countries, and are projected to grow rapidly in the next three decades. This growth threatens to have a devastating impact on the growth in workers’ take-home pay and the government budget deficit. It is also likely to increase the number of Americans without health insurance from its already very high level and thus undermine the health of our population.
Successful health care reform will slow the growth rate of health care costs, maintain choices of doctors and health plans, and expand coverage. Slowing the growth rate of costs by 1.5 percentage points per year would have a dramatic impact on the trajectory of health care expenditures as a share of GDP over time. Slowing the growth rate of costs by a smaller amount (0.5 or 1.0 percentage point per year) would have smaller, but still important effects.
Our analysis shows that successful health care reform would have major benefits for the U.S. economy. Over time, the slowing of cost growth through increased efficiency would bring about substantial increases in Americans’ standard of living. It will also prevent devastating increases in the budget deficit and raise capital formation. We estimate that slowing health care cost growth by 1.5 percentage points will increase real GDP in 2030 by nearly 8 percent relative to what would happen without reform. We also find that slowing cost growth is likely to lower the unemployment rate consistent with steady inflation by roughly one-quarter of a percentage point for an extended period.
The net welfare effects of expanding coverage to the uninsured are also likely to be very large—probably in the range of $100 billion each year. Genuine reform will also likely increase labor supply, reduce job lock, and aid small businesses. . . .
The kind of reform that will bring about these economic rewards will not be easy. It will require truly game-changing innovations in many areas. But, if we can bring about such changes, there will be substantial benefits to American households, businesses, and the economy as a whole."
"Assumptions. In this analysis, we assume that all of the savings to the Federal government take the form of deficit reduction. The assumption is a reasonable approximation. In the absence of reform, rising health care costs will cause unsustainable increases in the deficit. Using the savings from reducing the growth of health care costs to prevent these increases is essential to our long-run fiscal health. This section implicitly assumes that the costs of expanding coverage, which we discuss in the next section, would be covered by budgetary savings above and beyond the “curve benders” that are the focus of this analysis and by revenue increases. This is consistent with the President’s budget, which identified particular savings in the Medicare program and proposed specific revenue measures to pay for health care reform. In addition, over an extended period, the costs of expanded coverage are much smaller than the resources freed up by slowing cost growth. For these reasons, even if a small part of the costs of expanding coverage were paid for out of the savings resulting from slowing cost growth, this would have only a minor effect on the analysis we present....
"VII. CONCLUSION
The American health care system is on an unsustainable path. Expenditures as a share of GDP are already substantially higher than in other developed countries, and are projected to grow rapidly in the next three decades. This growth threatens to have a devastating impact on the growth in workers’ take-home pay and the government budget deficit. It is also likely to increase the number of Americans without health insurance from its already very high level and thus undermine the health of our population.
Successful health care reform will slow the growth rate of health care costs, maintain choices of doctors and health plans, and expand coverage. Slowing the growth rate of costs by 1.5 percentage points per year would have a dramatic impact on the trajectory of health care expenditures as a share of GDP over time. Slowing the growth rate of costs by a smaller amount (0.5 or 1.0 percentage point per year) would have smaller, but still important effects.
Our analysis shows that successful health care reform would have major benefits for the U.S. economy. Over time, the slowing of cost growth through increased efficiency would bring about substantial increases in Americans’ standard of living. It will also prevent devastating increases in the budget deficit and raise capital formation. We estimate that slowing health care cost growth by 1.5 percentage points will increase real GDP in 2030 by nearly 8 percent relative to what would happen without reform. We also find that slowing cost growth is likely to lower the unemployment rate consistent with steady inflation by roughly one-quarter of a percentage point for an extended period.
The net welfare effects of expanding coverage to the uninsured are also likely to be very large—probably in the range of $100 billion each year. Genuine reform will also likely increase labor supply, reduce job lock, and aid small businesses. . . .
The kind of reform that will bring about these economic rewards will not be easy. It will require truly game-changing innovations in many areas. But, if we can bring about such changes, there will be substantial benefits to American households, businesses, and the economy as a whole."
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