All Those Unnecessary Tests
@kausmickey brings up a good point:
Does your doctor order up unnecessary tests? I have to pry them out of mine.
And he brings up another good point -- that Kevin Drum has a good point. From Drum's piece in Mother Jones:
...two-thirds of the country already has health insurance through their employer and another big chunk are on Medicare. If these aren't going to be touched, then why should they care about healthcare reform? In particular why should they be willing to pay higher taxes for something that won't help them out in any way?No reason, really. So instead Dems are promising to increase "access" and cut costs. The former is basically welfare and gets only anemic support. The latter is not only unproven, but doesn't do much to excite most people anyway. Sure, they'd like it if their copays went down, but mainly they just want healthcare and they don't care how much it costs.
Especially not if "other people" are paying for it. Except when they are those "other people" and they're paying for it for a lot of "other people."
I've already thought about this: I have health insurance through work. Whether people support employer-subsidized or not, I've got it already, so I absolutely don't want to see my taxes raised to pay for universal health care.
I am pretty sure what they do in MA is pool all the non-coveraged people then kinda create an insurance-like system, via Blue Cross, with them. I'm not sure of the details. I don't know how much of my taxes goes to it. But what I do know is that if you don't have some kind of health insurance (and send in proof w/ your state tax returns) you have to pay a $500 penalty which is more expensive than yearly coverage on the state system. We basically already have univ health care in MA...
Gretchen at July 24, 2009 5:36 AM
I don't think ANYONE wants this except Obama. Even most of the welfare parasites already have coverage through medicaid and aren't enthused about this.
Hopefully, it's DOA. There are encouraging signs this might be the case.
momof4 at July 24, 2009 5:59 AM
Here in Canada where the sky's the limit, your doctor will order as many tests as possible, as I get the feeling their primary concern is avoiding a malpractice suit.
Doctors want to be paid, and hospitals need cash to pay for their expensive machines and personnel, so according to the economic theories in 'Freakonimics', their primary motivation is figuring out ways to bill the government for anything and everything. In my opinion, my health is not being cared for, I'm just considered a means to an end.
Chrissy at July 24, 2009 6:11 AM
And when the money runs out for the year, they close the hospital in October.
Any way you slice it, government is always the least efficient method for delivering any service.
brian at July 24, 2009 6:47 AM
I recently read of fraud in the Massachusetts health care system. An excerpt:
We certainly live in interesting times.
Pseudonym at July 24, 2009 8:00 AM
Hm. Maybe there ought to be a minimum contract period like you have when you get that "free" cell phone? Cancel prematurely, and all the costs incurred over the policy period are billed back to you.
brian at July 24, 2009 8:40 AM
Another one that would probably help kill some of the costs. Limit the amount the lawyers make. Set the limit to $250,000 or 1/3 of the award whichever is smaller on a personal injury lawsuit. If it is a class action then it would be $1M or 1/3. And that is among all the plaintiff lawyers in the suit.
I bet you would see a drastic drop-off in the type of lawsuits that are based on junk science and/or the ones where the plaintiffs get a check for $35 and the lawyers make millions.
Jim P. at July 24, 2009 9:25 AM
More thoughts from Brian! Health care!
Crid [CridComment@gmail] at July 24, 2009 9:25 AM
Hey, someone's gotta think, because you're evidently not up to the challenge.
brian at July 24, 2009 10:24 AM
I know that my doctors have to do tons of tests whenever I go from say, my internist to a specialist. Even if I've just had xyz tests, the new doctor will do them too, I assume maybe for insurance reasons, or to protect themselves against lawsuits. Obviously there are some tests that might change over even a short amount of time, and those changes might be helpful in identifying certain diseases and conditions, but most won't. Aside from that I haven't really seen tons of over testing. Some medications require you to be tested every 3 months, and I assume it's for good reasons (i.e. to check your liver and other vitals aren't be adversely affected by the meds).
As far as Brian's plan, you'd just have to make sure that it was a choice, obviously if someone got laid off or fired they didn't want to lose their healthcare and shouldn’t be fined.
Stacy at July 24, 2009 10:30 AM
Well, there are reasons why people who currently have health insurance through their job might care about reforming health care.
One is that right now, if you're laid off, COBRA coverage is insanely expensive.
Another is that if are without health insurance for a while (due to changing jobs, or losing insurance), you could have trouble getting a new policy if you have any current health conditions.
And even if you have health coverage right now - do your siblings? Your kids? Your friends? All of them? What are the chances that someone you care about is going to lose their job, become disabled, or want to go to work for themselves?
jen at July 24, 2009 10:53 AM
Which is why decoupling insurance from employment is ESSENTIAL.
There is NO other lifestyle product that is so tied to employment. None.
You want to reform health-care?
1 - decouple from employment
2 - allow insurance companies to create a risk pool (or multiple pools) from clients in every state they are licensed to serve
3 - allow insurance companies to offer the same plans across state lines
Note that the only thing the government has to do is enable the companies to do their thing transparently.
Are some people going to end up with expensive plans? Yep. That's life. You aren't entitled to have something for free. If you've got a defective body, you're gonna be paying to keep it alive. Sorry, luck of the draw.
brian at July 24, 2009 11:26 AM
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