Health Care Costs and Supply/Demand
If there’s one thing I agree with Obama about, it’s that health care costs have gotten out of control. But it stops there. The health care inflation is just nuts, but it’s reflective of our system. The way our system is structured is that it jacks up the costs by overproviding. Basically,t he system artificially jacks up demand, which jacks up the price. Here’s how:
1. The group of people that see the doctor the most are the elderly. They are also the ones with totally free health care. Great. Instead of health care, imagine the price of pizza. If pizza lover, fat people, and college kids all had a permanent ‘all you can eat pizza for free’ card that was paid by the US government, how much do you think pizza would cost for the rest of us! The supply couldn’t keep up; the price would just skyrocket.
2. Medical liability lawsuits force doctors into overtesting. Have a cough? They’ll run an intense panel and send you to a specialist. Easier to just lay the cost on your insurance company (and ultimately to ther est of us with higher premiums) than risk a lawsuit.
3. Health insurance companies are just a fiasco. No way else to say it. Some beaurocrat at teh end of the line looking at every procedure to seee if it is necessary to do.
Obama wants free care for all, which will just exacerbate the first issue. He won’t do anything about number 2, and number 3 is something no one knows what to do. We need a system where people pay a flat 20-30% for everything up to a certain limit. Seniors need to not get totally free care unless they are poor; otherwise they need to share the cost in their treatment like the rest of us. Efficiencies need to be found, but I just don’t trust the government will be the ones that will find it.
Above all else, we just need less doctors in our lives. If your diet consists of hamburgers, fried chicken, soda, and beer, you’re going to have to deal with the consequences.