Although nobody, neither President nor any of the other positicians is willing to admit it, the major reason health care costs keep rising is because of advances in medicine. If doctors practiced the health care of the 1950’s the cost would be a small fraction of what it costs today. Nobody is suggesting that we throw out the EKG’s, MRI’s, CAT scanners and ultra sound machines, but these and a lot of other very expensive diagnostic and treatment procedures are the major factors driving up the cost of health care, and hence that of health insurance. In spite of the proposals in congress that claim to cut health care costs, there can be no really significant cost cutting unless new cures and diagnostic techniques which require expensive new hardware and procedures are curtailed. This of course is not a pleasant situation either for the medical industry or the patients who use their services.
The present “model” of health insurance is based on the assumption that life is precious and the insured is entitled to whatever approved (non-experimental) diagnostic and treatment regimens are ordered by a doctor. This open ended model is unsustainable because new medical advances will continue to be approved at a rate that causes costs to rise much faster than the growth of the economy and wages. This model must change to keep health care affordable. Increasingly, financial factors will have to be considered in health care decisions. The question is: who will make these decisions?
The health care bill that Obama is trying to get passed does address these costs by allowing the government to set rules as to who gets what kind of treatment. If an extra thirty million people are added to the list of insured at mostly public expense, people are not going to like the rules government will have to make. Logic dictates that this will be particularly true for the elderly because they contribute less to society (the death panels?). Also, rules that limit access to diagnostic and treatment procedures based on cost and other factors, will negatively impact medical advances because an advance may not be accepted by the rule makers. This does cut future increases but at a cost of decreasing the general quality of healthcare. But no rule should prevent those who can afford to pay for a procedure they deem beneficial from acquiring it.
The present “model” of health insurance is based on the assumption that life is precious and the insured is entitled to whatever approved (non-experimental) diagnostic and treatment regimens are ordered by a doctor. This open ended model is unsustainable because new medical advances will continue to be approved at a rate that causes costs to rise much faster than the growth of the economy and wages. This model must change to keep health care affordable. Increasingly, financial factors will have to be considered in health care decisions. The question is: who will make these decisions?
The health care bill that Obama is trying to get passed does address these costs by allowing the government to set rules as to who gets what kind of treatment. If an extra thirty million people are added to the list of insured at mostly public expense, people are not going to like the rules government will have to make. Logic dictates that this will be particularly true for the elderly because they contribute less to society (the death panels?). Also, rules that limit access to diagnostic and treatment procedures based on cost and other factors, will negatively impact medical advances because an advance may not be accepted by the rule makers. This does cut future increases but at a cost of decreasing the general quality of healthcare. But no rule should prevent those who can afford to pay for a procedure they deem beneficial from acquiring it.
The other option is to let the free market deal with the problem. If insurers loose too many customers because rates are high, they will offer plans with limited coverage at lower cost. You buy what you can afford and live with your decision. Medical advances would be negatively affected under this option as well, but only based on cost of the procedure.
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