I am the cause of increasing health care costs!

[techs]

Today on the McGlaughlin group they had a special on health care costs.
Bushies man Leavitt blamed me for the increasing cost of health care.
He said costs are going up because I don't know how much procedures cost!!
But of course he then contradicted himself because he then he showed us the "real" cause of health care increases. Its a PEN. Yes, a pen!
If only doctors wouldn't write so many prescriptions.
Then the CEO of Pizer told me the real problem is that other industrialized countries spend about 4-6 percent of health care on administration, but the US spends 30 percent.

Funny but I think the Pizer guy is the most on the money.
Health care cost 1.9 trillion in the US last year.
If we spent 6 percent instead of 30 percent on administration that would save us 24 percent!! Imagine health care costs could go down 24 percent in the US. And it would not lessen the amount of treatment one bit.
AS for the idiot Leavitt I guess I should have known we only needed a gastro-jejuenostomy instead of ventriculocisternostomy. It really is my fault.
And of course if my doctor didn't prescribe my allergy medication I could save a bundle.
Oh, yeah. I need to lose weight. Kinda hard when the last commericial I saw on tv told me mayonnaise was GOOD for me.
Sheesh.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: techs
Today on the McGlaughlin group they had a special on health care costs.
Bushies man Leavitt blamed me for the increasing cost of health care.
He said costs are going up because I don't know how much procedures cost!!
But of course he then contradicted himself because he then he showed us the "real" cause of health care increases. Its a PEN. Yes, a pen!
If only doctors wouldn't write so many prescriptions.
Then the CEO of Pizer told me the real problem is that other industrialized countries spend about 4-6 percent of health care on administration, but the US spends 30 percent.

Funny but I think the Pizer guy is the most on the money.
Health care cost 1.9 trillion in the US last year.
If we spent 6 percent instead of 30 percent on administration that would save us 24 percent!! Imagine health care costs could go down 24 percent in the US. And it would not lessen the amount of treatment one bit.
AS for the idiot Leavitt I guess I should have known we only needed a gastro-jejuenostomy instead of ventriculocisternostomy. It really is my fault.
And of course if my doctor didn't prescribe my allergy medication I could save a bundle.
Oh, yeah. I need to lose weight. Kinda hard when the last commericial I saw on tv told me mayonnaise was GOOD for me.
Sheesh.

Cliffs: It's everyone's fault but Bushies.

 

[zendari]

You can't magically take out 24% of the money in the health care industry and assume it will have no effect on future investment.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Whats interesting about this thread is most people with an opinion have no clue at all.

All 99% of them don`t even work in the industry so they really are clueless!!

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: zendari
You can't magically take out 24% of the money in the health care industry and assume it will have no effect on future investment.

HAHAHAHAHA.
PROOF you never even read, or understand what is written.
Your post makes NO SENSE whatever.
I mean, NO SENSE at all.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: zendari
You can't magically take out 24% of the money in the health care industry and assume it will have no effect on future investment.

Sure we can, it wouldn't even be a good warm up.

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: zendari
You can't magically take out 24% of the money in the health care industry and assume it will have no effect on future investment.

ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS, YOU....!

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

General healthcare inflation is a reflection of several factors:
1) Aging population
2) Increased morbidity in general regardless of age (obesity, sedentary population, poor nutrition)
3) availability of expensive interventional technology (including medications)
4) lack of priority for public health/preventive medicine
5) competition between various providers to deliver MORE care but not necessarily efficient care
6) seemingly bottomless trough of consumable resources
7) 1-6 creates an environment of increased utilization and increased cost per unit of utilization

8) dependence on for profit healthcare insurance industry has distorted costs in an entirely negative way for both providers and patients: insurance companies have extracted tremendous profits in the past 5 years by squeezing provider payments, decreasing benefits to patients, and increasing premiums.

Leavitt is a tool. It's hard to even feign surprise at the scarcely competent people that Bush tags for "service" to the American public.

Having said all that . . . there is an element of consumerism in healthcare but it is poorly quantified so its difficult to claim it is a primary factor. For instance, many of the tens of billions in "consumer" behavior is coming from healthcare expenses that are often not covered by insurance . . . alternative/complementary medicine, OTC drug use, specialty clinic use, purely cosmetic procedures, etc.

The majority of our healthcare expenses come from chronic disease care. People with diabetes are not going to "manage" the development and execution of their polypharmacy treatment regimen. If they could we would call them endocrinologists (or more specifically . . . diabetologists). The same is true for cardiovascular and pulmonary disease.

Curiously, the best established means of preventing disease and mitigating the effects of chronic disease . . . diet and physical activity management . . . are RARELY covered by health plans. Even if they were covered our healthcare system does not train MDs to provide such services.

In sum we need fundamental changes in how we LIVE and fundamental changes in our approach to healthcare (preventive vs interventional) AND remove ridiculous leeches in the system (most for-profit insurance companies).

 

[Meuge]

Frankly, I no longer see competition between providers in terms of increasing care, but rather the patients running from provider to provider to find one that would actually pay for almost ANY care.

Considering that the vast majority of people in the US who are insured, receive their insurance through their employers, and the collossal cuts in care that the large HMOs have undertaken in the last few years, I don't think there is any real contest in terms of providing services.

The situation is so bad that almost all of the doctors I visit as a patient, who have a practice, have ceased accepting all insurance other than personal plans, or rely on charging the patient first, and then filing the paperwork to have them be reimbursed (which is never >50%, in my experience, and takes months).

The reason for this is simple - insurance companies have taken the art of bureacratic inefficiency, and converted it into a money-making machine. IN the words of one of the physicans I know, it now takes an average of 7-9 months to receive payment from the insurance companies, compared to ~3 months 5 years ago.

 

[GroundedSailor]

Originally posted by: JEDIYoda
Whats interesting about this thread is most people with an opinion have no clue at all.

All 99% of them don`t even work in the industry so they really are clueless!!

If you have been following this forum and techs posts you will know he is a senioer executive in the health care industry - having worked his way up in theta industry.

So maybe, just maybe, he has some idea about the industry?