The Future of American Healthcare
by Efin Advisor | November 10, 2008
In an ailing economy, a weakness in one part of the system has a tendency to affect other parts. Warren Buffet described America’s financial crisis as an athlete who had suffered a heart attack. When the patient is the financial sector, and the patient is flat on its back, the risk of failure is writ large and intervention must be swift. “We need to get the athlete back on its feet,” said Buffet.
What kind of setbacks in one part of the economy will lead to a domino effect that triggers other losses? The automotive industry made its case last week for government help that would stem the tide of job losses and help retool America’s transportation fleet for greater fuel economy. Still another dreaded consequence of rising unemployment threatens America’s health and well-being. That threat is manifested in the health care industry and the prospect of millions of uninsured families and children.
Just as toxic debt has harmed our banks, the widening gap between affordable health insurance and uninsured Americans holds us all hostage, either leaving individuals at bankruptcy’s door or the American taxpayer holding the door, and footing the bills, at hospital emergency rooms. America’s health insurance malady quickly worsens as more and more people start to lose insurance due to layoffs or closures.
What measures can the government and insurance companies take to treat America’s health care insurance crisis? Does American health care need first aid now? What’s your diagnosis?
I doubt that improving healthcare will have the same effect on the economy as bailing out automakers would. Healthcare should not be a right, and I’ve never understood why the government is so fervent about making sure everyone has free healthcare. Having a job, however, is something that the government should ensure Americans can do, and helping companies like GM is a great way to do that. Cars have been the backbone of American labor for decades and if we want to continue our dominance of foreign car markets, we need to save those companies right now.
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I hate to sound cliché, but now that Obama has been elected, hope is just around the corner. He is going to fix healthcare by creating a national system which will not be as susceptible to economic crises as our private insurers are. Already the system was badly broken, but now companies are cutting back on benefits and increasing prices. I think that a government system is the only feasible option for healthcare, because it is not profit driven. Seriously, who thought that it would be a good idea to trust our health to the benevolence of a corporation, with the primary goal of making money? Why are we surprised that they are trying to make money at our expense? We should stop paying them, and stand up to say no. In my mind, January 20th can’t come soon enough.
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We need to do the same thing we did for the banks as for the health care industry. They are starving for money as well and if they fail, people die. Its that simple. Its even more serious than the banks since they only deal wtih economic health but the hospitals deal with real health. We need to do everything we can to ensure that hospitals do not close and that people can receive the health care that they need. I think maybe some of the bailout money should go to them but I also think the government needs to take drastic steps to regulate the insurance industry so that people can afford health insurance.
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America needs healthcare reform now more than ever due to the current economic crisis. Money might not be flowing freely anymore, but illnesses, injuries, and medical emergencies don’t care what the economy looks like, and people still need a good way to get well. If we can pump money back into healthcare, it’ll mean more people getting better faster and contributing to the economy. But I don’t think economics should be the reason for improving healthcare; we have a duty to our citizens and we have to make sure people are taken care of as best we can.
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Healthcare reform should be the least of our worries right now. Don’t get me wrong, I want to see Americans get healthcare as much as the next guy, but the money is pretty tight right now. If we don’t pour our money into economic corrections now, we’ll all need government-sponsored healthcare, and how will anyone pay for it? The solution is to make it so that Americans can truly afford healthcare, and subsidize it for those who can’t. The more Americans who have jobs, the more Americans who can pay for their healthcare, and the less subsidization we need. Fix the economy, and you’ll fix the healthcare system.
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A healthy economy requires a healthy workforce. Americans can only be productive if they feel well enough to be productive. This is why I’ve always advocated for a stronger emphasis on health care. Now, i certainly dont pretend to think that this will solve a mortgage crisis, but it is an important element of economic health. If our hospitals were to fail, we would be in even bigger trouble.
Barack Obama’s health care plan from his website would be a good way to ensure more people are insured, but I’m not sure how that would deal with hospitals not having enough money. Maybe more coverage would help but its hard to say that their debt would disappear. Likely it would just be spread to the tax payer.
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We do not have nearly enough money to start giving it away to hospitals and health care providers. You know how we can fix this situation: MAKE MEDICINE CHEAPER!! Everywhere else in the world the cost of medicine and medical expenses is ridiculously lower than in the United States. If we find ways to regulate the prices, then we will see less people going into debt from their medical bills and less hospitals spending more than they can get back in return. This would not cost American’s a dime and we would get quite a bit back from it
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I believe that healthcare reform is necessary for groups without healthcare insurance in south florida. As a professional in the industry we find too many individuals and groups who do not have coverage.
Jean Drogus
http://www.securefloridian.com
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I just want to point out that government healthcare policies, first and foremost, should seek to benefit children, because they can’t buy insurance on their own. I think if an adult is lazy, decides not to get a job, freeloads off America, they shouldn’t get the benefit of health insurance. However, if those people have children, those children should be the U.S.’s first priority. Our priorities are backwards when we’re giving healthcare as a form of welfare to some people yet there are still millions of uninsured children across the country. Take as much healthcare money as you can and use it to insure every child in America. Whatever you have left over, use for the adults.
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Please, no government management of anything. Just look at the problems and mismanagement of the Medicare system.
The actual healthcare system works, it is not perfect but it is good. The only problem it is that it is too expensive. Here in South Florida, especially in the area of group health insurance the rates are outrageous. Therefore, let’s concentrate in reducing the costs of today’s system and forget about the illusion of a government run health care program.
Here are a couple of ideas to cut costs and by that cut premiums:
1.- Tort reform. Less lawyers, less malpractice law suits,less malpractice insurance, less charges from the physician and hospitals
2.- Group Health insurance in South Florida, especially in Broward and Dade Counties is very expensive since about 25% of the premium is for prescription drugs. Therefore open borders and de-monopolize the drug industry. Cheaper drugs mean in general cheaper premiums.
3. Advertisement and marketing programs of insurance companies should be prohibited. That will give us the consumer a big chunk of savings.
4. Attach compensation of insurance companies executives not to what is the price performance of the company’s shares but how much percent has the premium charged to the insured was reduced
Any idea out there will be better than any Federal Health Insurance Program!
Jorge Burgoa
securefloridian.com
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Nationalizing health care would be a terrible idea. We’ve all heard about how socialist health care in Canada and Europe doesn’t work. People wait in line for hours upon hours for even basic treatment and more advanced. Everyone is constantly booking appointments over anything, driving up expenses and government bureaucracy has made everything inefficient. These organization will find ways to fix the problems that exist for them. They are not going to fail: people always need doctors and will certainly continue going to them.
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Jerry– universal healthcare actually does work in many parts of Canada. The mistake you’re making is that you think Canadian healthcare is nationalized, when in fact it varies from province to province. Some provinces are bad, and those are the nightmare stories people in the U.S. hear about. But other parts have great healthcare and it runs like clockwork. I am all for having universal healthcare in the United States if we could truly do it the right way and make sure it’s managable. It has been done wrong before, but it has also been done right (look at Cuba). We can use empirical evidence and better models to ensure our universal healthcare system works.
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This is the nightmare scenario. The last thing we need right now is for the government to step on the toes of business while it is trying to get up off the mat. There is no question in my mind that we should not let the government try to over-regulate industries. In order to cope with the current economic crisis we should allow business as much leeway as possible to regulate its self. Currently we have healthcare for americans, and the healthcare industry employs many workers. If the healthcare industry suddenly loses its customer base, there are going to be thousands of unemployed healthcare workers.
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I realize this is probably an unpopular position, but I think that our healthcare system is doing just fine, and that it would be a mistake of epic proportions to monkey with it at this point. It would have been difficult with many repercussions even if we were not in our current economic state. Making some massive changes to a system that is reasonably well off at the moment would be a terrible allocation of resources that could be used to bolster the parts of our economy which are actually hurting.
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I have to echo Christian’s comment about Canadian health care but Jerry’s point is even worse than that. Even if the Canadian system isnt perfect, is America’s any better? We have 47 million people uninsured, more than any other country in the world. We have the most expensive medical system and we spend more per patient than any other country in the world. Maybe we are the country that’s missing something. So many people die in our country from lack of medical care, thus we shouldn’t have the system where people who wouldnt get care should just have to wait a bit for it? this doesnt make sense to me, it probably shouldn’t for you either.
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Jorge, I am intrigued by your 2nd, 3rd and 4th points but your first is just empirically denied. Tort reform has proven ineffective in all the states that have passed laws capping claims. There are a few reasons for this.
First: most medical cases are settled out of court and over 95% of cases in general are for less than 500000 so the change tort reform provides is minimal.
Second: insurance companies do not care. Doctors have to buy insurance no matter what, thus they can charge whatever they want. To be honest I would not be all that surprised if insurance agencies colluded on this, since it is odd that they do not seem to respond to lower costs.
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