Last night President Obama spoke to Congress trying to send his message about health care reform and finding affordable health insurance. One major concern that many Americans have is that of cost. He put a price tag of $900 billion over 10 years, which is less than previous estimates, but still a huge number. Some people worry that this may be a case of low-balling. Putting out a smaller number than what you really think it may cost so that it’s easier to get your bill approved seems to be popular these days.
I agree that there are a lot of things about the current health care system that need to be changed. There are currently not many incentives in the system to keep costs in check.
Example #1. Doctors today are scared to death of being sued, and for good reason. Because of that, they practice defensive medicine to protect themselves. They prescribe extra tests and proceedures that are not really medically necessary, but will cover their rear ends in the event of a future law suit. This makes sense to me. But on top of that, the more tests and proceedures they perform, the more money they make. So it helps them in two ways to practice defensive medicine.
Example #2. A mother goes in to the doctor to get my child’s ear ache checked out. She pays her co-pay of $15 or $30, and that’s all she has to pay. Her affordable health insurance plan pays for the rest of it. Or at least it’s now between the health insurance company and the doctors office to work out how much they will pay. But to that mother, she really doesn’t care what it costs because it doesn’d directly impact her. She just wants to make sure she gets good care for her sick child. In the long run it does impact her as the health insurance premiums go up every year based on everyone’s claims. But for today, she’s not having to pay anything but her co-pay.
The only party in the health care realationship who does care what things cost is the insurance company. They are doing everything they can to control costs every day. If the doctor and the patient were also incented to do the same thing, this wouldn’t be such a big problem. But in the current health care system, there is no incentive for anyone but the insurance company to control costs.
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