{"id":1155,"date":"2017-03-10T13:24:44","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T19:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/?p=1155"},"modified":"2017-03-10T13:24:44","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T19:24:44","slug":"healthcare-reform-25-years-has-not-changed-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/?p=1155","title":{"rendered":"Healthcare Reform. 25 Years Has Not Changed Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Ok, I’m speaking here as someone with over 35 years in the healthcare industry. \u00a0I started as a tech and research assistent as a college sophomore and have been involved in much of the major cardiac advances over that period.<\/p>\n

There is a fundamental mistake happening in all of this. \u00a0The focus is on having insurance. \u00a0Whether or not you have insurance is not the real issue. \u00a0The real point is having affordable access to actual care. Yes, there is a place for insurance, but as a job benefit is certainly not the place. \u00a0All that does is shield it from market forces that would otherwise manage the cost. \u00a0There are<\/em> parts to this plan that have good ideas. \u00a0Maybe it’s the best starting point we can get.<\/p>\n

However, if you really want to solve the problem, I’ve been arguing the following areas that need to be addressed since Hillarycare back in 1992-1993.<\/p>\n

1. \u00a0Eliminate the state line barriers for insurance. \u00a0The “replacement” plan does include this.<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0Reforms for malpractice lawsuits. \u00a0This is a tricky one. \u00a0We cannot shield actual malpractice however, the ease of cashing in on the system whenever there is a bad outcome has to be addressed. \u00a0It’s not simply a matter of passing on the insurance costs. \u00a0There is also a great deal of over-testing and\/or over-treating patients simply to try and avoid being sued.<\/p>\n

3. \u00a0Address the cost impact of Medicare\/Medicaid. \u00a0The two most important that come to mind is the rate of increase of benefits and regulatory restrictions on charging patients not<\/em> on Medicare. \u00a0In the case of the first, if Medicare spending increases 12-14% annually simply because<\/em>, guess what happens in medical practices? \u00a0You might not see the cost increase in your co-pay, but the insurance company certainly does. \u00a0The second point is best stated as a question. \u00a0Did you know that if you accept Medicare, it is illegal to charge other patients less<\/em> than what Medicare reimburses? \u00a0In other words doctors are not allowed to charge less for someone who is poor. \u00a0Back in my clinical days in the 1980s, it was not uncommon at all to see billing paperwork marked as “Ins Only.” \u00a0That meant we’d just take whatever the insurance company would pay and write off the rest. \u00a0Medicare regs don’t allow that any more. \u00a0There’s more that can be done to fix Medicare – scrapping DRGs being high on that list – but these first two are the most important starts.<\/p>\n

4. \u00a0End health insurance as an employer benefit. By making it a benefit, the buyer of health care services (whether insurance or point of care) has been separated from the seller of the service (whether insurance or care provider). \u00a0You, the patient, never encounter the actual cost of the care or insurance. \u00a0Ok … actually you do, in the reduction of wages and increased cost of other goods as the cost is passed on, but it still bypasses the pressures of market to find the proper balance between customer (patient) and seller (doctor). \u00a0Obviously, this will be the hardest to address simply because of the amount of money involved. \u00a0While still profitable professions, it will end the cash cow for insurance and big medicine that have been milking the system for decades. \u00a0Truth is, there won’t be a truly successful change unless this is addressed.<\/p>\n

There’s a lot of other areas that could and should be addressed. \u00a0Regulatory burdens on Pre-Market Approvals (PMAs) and New Drug Applications (NDAs) are just one example. \u00a0DRGs (Diagnosis Related Groups) would be another. \u00a0This latter is what is responsible for that $24 aspirin on your hospital bill. \u00a0However, the four above are the absolute essentials for effective reform. 1992 to 2017. 25 years and the reality hasn’t changed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ok, I’m speaking here as someone with over 35 years in the healthcare industry. \u00a0I started as a tech and research assistent as a college sophomore and have been involved in much of the major cardiac advances over that period. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,6,8],"tags":[22,30,51,68,72,94,285,283,286,284,202],"class_list":["post-1155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-news","category-healthcare","category-politics","tag-tcot","tag-aca","tag-current-events","tag-government","tag-healthcare","tag-obamacare","tag-reform","tag-repeal","tag-repeal-and-replace","tag-rinocare","tag-trump"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5yCHs-iD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1155"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1159,"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155\/revisions\/1159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}