The journal Health Affairs had some economists take a look at the healthcare plans put out by by both McCain and Obama. The Washington Post summarized it nicely. McCain's plan, they feel, would add more people to the insurance rolls but would lose as many due to employers who stop paying for it. They also think that insurance companies would move to states, if cross-state insurance shopping is allowed, that allow them to game the system. This again would screw over patients. They feel Obama's plan is basically one big government subsidy (isn't half of our healthcare system today?) which would skyrocket the costs because the concept of rationing doesn't enter his mind. My state chapter of the Academy of Family Physicians put out their newsletter, and though they are supposed to remain nonpartisan (yeah, right!), they obviously dropped hints that they love Obama's plan because they want all patients covered. They forget the ripple effect of what happens when there is not enough cash to cover this. Anyway, I like the concept of personal responsibility and teaching someone how to fish versus letting them eat at the free buffet every day. My patients are working me daily to try cheaper meds and I comply because they are right. I love their ownership and it proves to me that when they have to pay out of their own pockets, they will bring costs down. My next editorial for the upcoming October issue of the Placebo Journal, coincidentally, takes a look at this election topic again. You should check it out.
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This just goes to show how politicians continue to be focused on financing the current system instead of redesigning how we organize and deliver health services in a rational system.
I was interested when I read in the Wall Street Journal, no liberal mag by any stretch, an article titled "Why Obama's Health Plan Is Better"
Here are some highlights:
"Sustained growth thus requires successful health-care reform. Barack Obama and John McCain propose to lead us in opposite directions — and the Obama direction is far superior.
Sen. Obama’s proposal will modernize our current system of employer- and government-provided health care, keeping what works well, and making the investments now that will lead to a more efficient medical system. He does this in five ways:
- Learning. One-third of medical costs go for services at best ineffective and at worst harmful. Fifty billion dollars will jump-start the long-overdue information revolution in health care to identify the best providers, treatments and patient management strategies.
- Rewarding. Doctors and hospitals today are paid for performing procedures, not for helping patients. Insurers make money by dumping sick patients, not by keeping people healthy. Mr. Obama proposes to base Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals and doctors on patient outcomes (lower cholesterol readings, made and kept follow-up appointments) in a coordinated effort to focus the entire payment system around better health, not just more care.
- Pooling. The Obama plan would give individuals and small firms the option of joining large insurance pools. With large patient pools, a few people incurring high medical costs will not topple the entire system, so insurers would no longer need to waste time, money and resources weeding out the healthy from the sick, and businesses and individuals would no longer have to subject themselves to that costly and stressful process.
- Preventing. In today’s health-care market, less than one dollar in 25 goes for prevention, even though preventive services — regular screenings and healthy lifestyle information — are among the most cost-effective medical services around. Guaranteeing access to preventive services will improve health and in many cases save money.
- Covering. Controlling long-run health-care costs requires removing the hidden expenses of the uninsured. The reforms described above will lower premiums by $2,500 for the typical family, allowing millions previously priced out of the market to afford insurance.
In addition, tax credits for those still unable to afford private coverage, and the option to buy in to the federal government’s benefits system, will ensure that all individuals have access to an affordable, portable alternative at a price they can afford."
Here's a plan:
1) Abolish the VA (Save Billions) and give all the vets an insurance card to see private doctors and hospitals.
2) Fire 40,000 medicare staff, and thousands mare staff from medicare suppliers (Humana, Secure-care, etc. (Save Billions more.
3) Let physicians decide what care/tests/procedures are needed. They, after all, are the doctors!
4) Hire 2000 insurance special investigators (for the whole country) to go around to doctors offices looking for fraud. Let them look at the charts. I'm sick and tired of sending in my notes for review or for prior authorization. Let the specialists weed out/fine/prosecute the 1 to 2% of offenders...and leave the rest of us alone!
There's a few billion drops in the bucket
Doug said: "they love Obama's plan because they want all patients covered. They forget the ripple effect of what happens when there is not enough cash to cover this"
With all due respect, that kind of thinking went out the window first with the ten billion dollar a month Iraqi invasion and the massive tax cuts which some think that we can afford to make permanent, followed up by astronomical bail-outs of investment firms, insurance giants mortgage lenders and the automotive industry. Oh, and don't forget that America is apparently also wealthy enough to forbid negotiating prices for the Part D drug benefit.
Listen, doctor, you're a taxpayer too (as was I until I liquidated, retired early and expatriated this year), and with your 401k going down like the titanic and your savings inflating away with each new greenback printed to finance this fiasco, you better get what you can before the well runs dry.
So, permit yourself to vote for socialized medicine, or as close as you can get to it before the well runs dry. It's not like you can help America by making a sacrifice of yourself. And nobody is looking out for you but you.
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