OT: Best Discussion yet on Obamacare IMO: Nixon

[ocrenter]

[quote=Jazzman]Do you work in healthcare OCR?[/quote]

yes, I do play one on TV. 🙂

[all]

[quote=ocrenter][quote=Jazzman]Do you work in healthcare OCR?[/quote]

yes, I do play one on TV. :-)[/quote]

Dr. Jake Ramoray, is that you?

[ocrenter]

[quote=all][quote=ocrenter][quote=Jazzman]Do you work in healthcare OCR?[/quote]

yes, I do play one on TV. :-)[/quote]

Dr. Jake Ramoray, is that you?[/quote]

I had to google that.

btw, brain transplant IS NOT a covered benefit with or without Obamacare. The actuaries were quite clear about that.

[ocrenter]

[img_assist|nid=17715|title=__|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=694|height=600]

Here’s the cost of care per age group

[no_such_reality]

So basically, just double the Medicare wage tax from 1.45% to 2.9% and provide medicare to every single person.

Total expenditures if run through medicare would be around $1.8 trillion assuming 0% savings from medicare providing.

Or better yet, just put a flat 2% tax on AGI on all income filers and provide medicare to everyone, use the excess to provide the subsidy to low income.

[spdrun]

Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner! And people would still be able to buy supplemental (“Medigap?”) insurance, so that should satisfy the death panel sceptics.

[scaredyclassic]

i think we would as a nation rather complain and have things divided as inequitably as possible, with all surplus to go directly into insurance company pockets.

[ocrenter]

Bottomline, we need to figure something out before the Baby Boomer generation hits 80+. The first of that generation are already in their late 60’s. So we got about ten years before the bomb explodes.

[CA renter]

[quote=no_such_reality]So basically, just double the Medicare wage tax from 1.45% to 2.9% and provide medicare to every single person.

Total expenditures if run through medicare would be around $1.8 trillion assuming 0% savings from medicare providing.

Or better yet, just put a flat 2% tax on AGI on all income filers and provide medicare to everyone, use the excess to provide the subsidy to low income.[/quote]

But there would likely be significant savings. As I mentioned earlier, we *already* cover the most expensive patients (elderly, maternity, infant/children, and the indigent). We leave the most profitable to the private sector. If we had Medicare for all, the per capita cost would be significantly lower than the current costs for the elderly (the most expensive patients out there).

[Jazzman]

This is an insurer’s (Aetna) report, but the principle that costs are the problem is, I believe, correct. Merely finding ways to meet those costs encourages escalating them.

Compared to other Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations, hospital spending in the U.S. is more than 60 percent higher. Spending on physicians, specialists and dentists is almost 2 ½-times higher than in other OECD countries.

[img_assist|nid=17716|title=Graph|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=515|height=423]

Reasons:

Hospital mergers and acquisitions jumped by 33 percent between 2009 and 2010. Research shows that hospital market concentration leads to increases in the price of hospital care.

Wow! Now aren’t M&As supposed to have the opposite effect?

Higher levels of obesity and greater access to advanced medical technology, is a primary driver of higher spending levels.

Don’t just blame the fatties. This is the food industry targeting poorer people.

After hospital spending the next biggest contributor to overall spending growth … was the increase in physician and clinical service costs.

Apparently, doctors pay up 30% of their income on liability insurance. Obama clearly needs to find other sources of campaign funds.

The implementation of new medical technology accounts for between 38 percent and 65 percent of health care spending increases.

That’s huge. Ends justifies the means looks more like a corporate slogan here.

Half of all health care spending, is the result of waste. The biggest area of excess is defensive medicine, including redundant, inappropriate or unnecessary tests and procedures.

Another huge and seemingly, easily solved problem. How many CPAs do hospitals have on their boards. Clearly not enough.

The growing burden of chronic diseases adds significantly to escalating health care costs. Obesity accounts for an estimated 12 percent of the health spending growth in recent years.

Now this is an interesting one. Were are, by all accounts, becoming healthier since we are living longer. It seems we are living longer so we can enjoy longer poor health.

Major drug manufacturers have an average profit margin of 16.7 percent; medical instrument and supply companies, 13.6 percent; biotechnology, 11.9 percent; and medical appliance and equipment companies, 13.7 percent.

This is just Aetna’s gripe about insurers being blamed for the costs. They state their profit margins are significantly less. In some senses, they do occupy the end of the soup line so their gripe is somewhat justified.

Source: http://www.aetna.com/health-reform-connection/aetnas-vision/facts-about-costs.html#spending

[all]

Single payer + H1B for MD’s and DDS/DMD’s?
But what do you do with all the doctors, dentists and back office people who can’t pay back the loans they took to acquire skills?

[no_such_reality]

[quote=ocrenter]Bottomline, we need to figure something out before the Baby Boomer generation hits 80+. The first of that generation are already in their late 60’s. So we got about ten years before the bomb explodes.[/quote]

The biggest health savings we’ll get is by getting people covered and into care instead of spiraling until they cannot be ignored.

And we need seriously change our end of life care expectations. AKA death panels.

[Jazzman]

[quote=all]Single payer + H1B for MD’s and DDS/DMD’s?
But what do you do with all the doctors, dentists and back office people who can’t pay back the loans they took to acquire skills?[/quote]
As I mentioned in an earlier post, training/education is a major cost. When you see why it is so expensive, the words escape you. The biggest problem is, without question, a complete denial and inability to see spiraling, out-of-control costs as the problem. You have seen it in housing, education, health care and yet the popular fix is to find extra money from somewhere. The problem with that is it just pushes the costs to somewhere else. Nobody wants money taken from them, but I find it impossible to believe that many of the costs cannot be reduced significantly without too much hurt. In plain English, it is quite insane and worrying that the issue is sidestepped.

[Jazzman]

[quote=no_such_reality][quote=ocrenter]Bottomline, we need to figure something out before the Baby Boomer generation hits 80+. The first of that generation are already in their late 60’s. So we got about ten years before the bomb explodes.[/quote]

The biggest health savings we’ll get is by getting people covered and into care instead of spiraling until they cannot be ignored.

And we need seriously change our end of life care expectations. AKA death panels.[/quote]

That is only half the equation. Just finding revenue will mean healthcare costs will remain high. The reason the current system is failing is because of out-of-control costs, not because of the uninsured, or insurance companies, or any other scapegoats. Look at the OECD figures. It says is all.

[all]

Based on the world bank’s 2010 data for the number of physicians per capita the US sits comfortably between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

[Author]

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