Tuesday, May 6, 2014
More Strong Evidence that the Third Party Payer Construct in Healthcare Stinks
According to David Goldhill's book, "Catastrophic Care" (and reinforced by the group, Physicians for a National Health Program), senior citizens are actually paying a higher percentage of their income in healthcare now (20%) than they were PRIOR to Medicare in 1965 (10%). Granted, some of that increase might simply be due to longer life expectancies but all of it? My suspicion is that it has a hell of a lot more to do with the fact that we've been subsidizing the hell out of healthcare and that whenever you're not spending your own damn money you simply don't spend it as prudently. It's common sense.
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7 comments:
What are you talking about? According to your own numbers seniors are spending more of their own money on healthcare (20% vs10%).
Because they're chasing the part that the third party payers (government and the insurance companies) are throwing into the mix. If it was strictly a patient doctor interaction, the prices would undoubtedly reach a much more sane level.......I remember when I was a kid. Our doctor (who granted was an older guy) used to charge us $10 an office visit, not a $10 co-pay but a $10 an office visit. If the government had wanted to get involved in healthcare back in '65, they should have allowed (or mandated) health savings accounts and not constructed a program that eventually ran 800% over budget.
That's over projected cost, not budget.
OK, projected cost. They were still way off, Jerry.
But those numbers are really immaterial to the purveyors of "the government can do it better" groups.
I'd be all for single payer (because it actually makes some sense) if I had ANY faith that the government would get it right long term.
Yeah, it's been such a rousing success in England, huh?
Will: Saner minds are prevailing, and slowly England is stepping away away from it.
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