How To Bring Down the Cost of Healthcare from an Economic standpoint. Increase preventative care. The leading cause of death for people between the ages of 15 and 24 is violence. The leading cause of death of people over the age of 65 is heart disease. Obesity is also a huge problem that affects children and adults a like which can lead to serious health complications. Any health care bill that doesn't offer incentives to reduce heart disease or obesity is doomed to fail. A bill should add a sin tax to foods high in preservatives and low in nutrition. Reduce the amount of people that use the emergency room as a primary source of care. Obama-care halfway addresses this by making efforts to reduce the uninsured but still doesn't address the full bulk of the problem. A serious healthcare bill aiming to reduce costs of healthcare would offer a significant tax break to those that visit a doctor regularly every 6 months for a check up. Limit the life of patents on name brand drugs so that more generics are available and medicines are more affordable for everyone. Drug companies pour much time and energy into marketing a brand name to doctors and patients both. Almost half of the average drug companies costs are associated with marketing. The costs associated with research however pales in comparison because marketing negates the need for research. Profits are made from existing brand names, research into new drugs costs money. In harder economic times (even though drug companies have billions of dollars in revenue), drug companies have less incentives to engage in research because it costs them more money. If Congress was to pass a law limiting the patents of a drug, the lifeblood of the drug companies would be at stake and more revenue would be poured into research to help ensure future profits. Some cancer patients are unable to have access to life saving drugs that cost a thousand dollars for one bottle. Generic drugs could save millions of lives and help make medicines more affordable to everyone. Harder to pursue frivolous malpractice lawsuits. Doctors require malpractice insurance which gets passed onto consumers. The more people that engage in ridiculous lawsuits, the further the cost of healthcare is driven up. Reduce the amount of people that are uninsured. People that are uninsured typically have lower than average incomes but 15% of the uninsured are families with incomes above $75,000. 2/3 of uninsured come from families where one or more members are full time workers but were not offered health insurance or opted not to enroll in insurance that would cover themselves or their families. Almost 1/5 of the uninsured are children. Simple solutions; provide a tax write off for hospitals that pay for low income families healthcare. Also provide substantial tax breaks for those that have health insurance. Address reasons why people are Uninsured. Addressing the uninsured is important because often hospitals are faced with uncompensated care costs, costs that arise when hospitals treat patients regardless of their ability to pay. To make up for these costs hospitals engage in price shifting, the practice of shifting the costs of the uninsured onto the insured to help make up for lost revenue. It is important to address the uninsured because they drive up the costs of healthcare of others while bearing none of the costs onto themselves. One reason people might be uninsured is because of a low level of risk aversion. Payoffs now of more money outweigh any benefit they might see in purchasing insurance. A bill should address these people by making privately purchased insurance tax deductible. Another reason people might be uninsured is because of adverse selection; buyers and sellers of insurance have access to different information so that there is risk on both sides... Insurance companies may be ripped off by customers by its low-balance, high-activity (least profitable customers). Customers might be ripped off by insurance companies who seek to guard themselves against those that wish to scam insurance companies. Obama care seeks to address adverse selection by making it so that insurance companies cannot exclude anyone with a preexisting condition. All this does is drive up the costs of everyone's coverage to help account for the expenses of those with preexisting conditions. Honestly, this is a tough problem to solve, the best way to take care of adverse selection would be preventative measures. The earlier you catch a disease, the better off you fare medically. Also preventative medicine can make people more aware of negative lifestyle choices (smoking, drinking, poor dietary choices) and provide people with a guideline to adopt more positive lifestyle choices. The best way to treat people with preexisting conditions is to treat them in a facility with other people that have the same ailment, which would further bring down the costs of treating them. Another reason people are uninsured is high costs. However, with added financial incentives to have healthcare more people would purchase it because it would benefit them financially.
So tell me, how do you prepose to bring down heart disease? Take my case, hearts moving blood better than the average (I'm 66), but the top number is high, 155 to 170. It has nothing to do with diet, it has to do with the type of job I do. Something called STRESS!!! Bottom number's between 54 and 75. Take your sin food tax and stuff it you know where. As long as you have the silly, "Since we take federal funds we will treat anyone that walks through the door wherther legal, illegal, unable to pay, drug addict, alcoholic, or what ever", you will have high hospital bills. In 1970 I paid the doc. and hospital off before number 3 daughter was born at 20 dollars a week. $800 was the bill for both. Compare it to now and tell me what this practice of treating everyone has done to the average person that works for a living. I went in for a skin graft on my thumb a few years back. I was in the hospital a total of 2 1/2 hours and the bill was over $18,600. That was for a 3/4" X 1 1/2" skin graft. I could have paid every thing I owe off except my house for that amount of money. The last time I looked a patent was good for 18 years then it was open to who ever. But...., you have to allow the Drug company to regain their investment or you will not have any new drugs coming on the market. It takes 15 years and about 5 billion dollars to get a new drug approved now. It's a free country. If people want to stay uninsured let them but don't treat them for nothing. Plus, state health coverage should be up to each state, not UHC. I'll cut this short, if you want to chop 30 to 45% of the cost of health care off tomorrow then get rid of all the paper work the Federal government has pilled on Doctors and hospitals.
Make people pay for things out of pocket. When was that last time you saw a person cut coupons for strep throat or any other hospital care. Compare that to lasik eye surgery. Because of competition, prices drop. When you have 260 million Americans, each seeking the lowest price. That will police health care.
Like I have told others, my wife and I had 6 children, 1 income (my wife stayed at home and raise the children, GASSSSPPPP), I have a 9th grade education and have been married to the same woman since I was 17 (and that's been 49 years now) and my children always had good health care without Uncle Sugar. Now, how come all you smart high school and collage grads can't do that??? And, NO, GF, my wife doesn't coupon. Lasik eye surgery in this state is $800 an eye, what's it where your at??
See now, guys like this are my hero. The smart college grads of today have no interest in family or no idea the sacrifices that must be made to raise one. Matter of fact, sacrifice isn't in their vocabulary. They are entitled to everything....now. They like to talk the talk, but when it comes time to walk the walk, they start looking for the handouts. Bringing down the cost of healthcare was never the objective. Well, it was from the people, thats what was asked of government to do anyway. Instead, they just spread out coverage, lowered benefits, and raised costs. Opposite of what was asked of them to do. Bottomline, the more government gets involved the more expensive it becomes. Excessive regulations, in every aspect of care, from drug companies, to imports, to buying healthcare across state lines, to hospitals, doctors, and everything inbetween. Not to mention the paperwork involved as already mentioned. The other side of the arguement stems from the belief that everyone is "entitled" to healthcare. There's that word again, "entitled". Where this mentality comes from I have no idea, well....I do but lets not go there right now. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Nowhere does it say healthcare, a car, food, shelter, cell phones, a job, clothes, or a college education. Life is what you make of it and provide by the fruits of your own labor, not someone elses. Thats why it's essential to keep as much of the fruits of your labor as possible, to provide for yourself and family. Simple concept really, one that is however rarely taught in schools or put into practical use. Sure, one can argue a central government is better equipped to provide for you and your family by relieving you of the fruits of your labor, but then you are taken out of the decision making process, and the fruits of your labor go to pay for someone who has no labor thus reducing the benefits you should realize. Who knows whats best for you or your family ? Government....or you ? Surely we all do not fit into the same box.
Now that is a tricky problem. How do you bring down costs when no one cares about the price of the service? That is what happens in health care, everyone wants the best, but not necessarily the cheapest. Thus, part of the solution is simple, no more health care plan coverage of "cheap" medical bills (not even partial). Most of the people won't suffer due to this, as insurance prices should go down accordingly. So, a good question is, are insurance companies actually even legally allowed to offer a cheaper plan only for high cost medical care? Another thing is that insurance industry seems to have a monopolistic characteristic, as shown by the steep rises in prices and profits. The solution for this is a lot more complicated, the government has been regulating the industry, caunsing tho monopolies! So either it goes all the way to the end and control prices, or it should drop the regulations. Now this would be an unpopular solution, even though it could end with better results, (people tend to think that laws and regulations are the solutions for everything, unfortunately). As for taxes, the US policy has been one of the dumbest I have ever seen, pay outright 30% (or whatever it is) of the insurance costs for employed people only? Since when should the employers be the responsible for the *personal* health of its employees, by no means there should be any tax deduction (read here subsidize) only for employed people. Either cut taxes for everyone or don't do anything, tax deductions like that only increase costs for those who need low costs the most, the unemployed. There are certainly more laws which I am overlooking here also.
You can drop the cost of health care by at lest 30% by cutting out all the garbage paper work the government has saddled the health care industry with.
