It's the Prices, Stupid: Consumers Don't Drive High Health Care Costs

[auditor0007]

It's insurance. If we didn't have other people pay for our needs, rates would have to be reasonable to get paid. Add the cost of schooling to that too. If people didnt have to pay so much for their schooling, so that they have to take out loans, they wouldn't have to charge so much to pay off their debts.

Educational costs to become a doctor in the US are much higher than in other countries. Also, malpractice insurance increases costs dramatically. Last of all, administrative costs are triple that of other countries. If we address the issues that drive up the costs, it would be a start. There are other issues though. For instance, we do have the most advanced technology when it comes to medicine and treatment of patients. The problem is that much of this technology is very new and is not being used anywhere near to capacity. This creates a big problem as it still must be paid for. If you have a brand new piece of equipment that costs $1 million dollars and it is only put to use for 50 patients per year, the cost becomes extremely high. We want these new technologies and things that can help improve our lives, but when they can't be put to scale, we have to ask whether it is worth it or not. In most any other business, a company would not invest $1 million on a piece of equipment that only would give them a return of $100,000. But we do this in healthcare all the time.

 

[Barb]

The theoretical laws regarding supply demand are tested when it comes to health care.

First, consumers do not decide their treatment in most cases, the doctors do.

Secondly, few consumers actually pay for their HC.

Now I am not saying that the supply demand plays no role in HC costs, but HC certainly isn't remotely like that widget market so many of read about in ECON 100

Secondly, few consumers actually pay for their HC.

No? Most wages are lower where HC is a benefit (or it used to be, now corps decide its easier to keep most at part time status), and with the ever increasing co-pays, even the insured in many cases don't have the money to go to the doctors office, and the doc asks for payment up front where I live.

I do see what you were driving at, but business is coming at this thing from a whole other perspective. Individualization is where its at where budget and finance is concerned, and as in the consumer empowerment philosophy of every big business, it is a truism in the HC field that it remains YOUR responsibility to stay healthy on your own, or die quietly, therefore not increasing their costs.

Fucking shame, but not unforeseeable, that the customer would someday be seen and counted as as great an overhead as the laborer is. We have arrived. We ARE the third world.

Question is, where will global corporate go next for their low wage labor platform, where will they go now that WE have no environmental regulation with any tooth enamel? And, one they seem not to have thought through...who the FUCK will they sell to?

 

[uscitizen]

So true. Another way it would bring down costs of physician office visits is that paying up front not only guarantees the doctor that he/she will be paid, but it also cuts administrative costs for billing and paperwork. When the consumer of a good are all expected to pay up front, costs equalize in relation to the actual market, and competition forces prices to be geared to the actual economy. Competition is a good thing for costs because it gives buyers a choice. As an example, if you have 20 local neurologists in your city, and you are paying out of pocket to see them, the market for them is strictly regulated by demand and quality. If one of them is a jackass that nobody likes, his competitors will benefit. He is pressured to either provide a good product that people are willing to pay him for, or he has to lower his price to attract other customers. If insurance companies are negotiating prices, then the quality of the service doesn't come into the equation.

I pay like nothing for my healthcare plan. I think $60 a month for a family of 4 includung vision and dental. maybe it's $60 a paycheck so $120 a month. But that's all I pay. We have a $10 copay with a primary care physician and $15 copay for others. no deductible for services. So I never really even think about the cost of healthcare. or see it as an issue. My wife had spine surgery and it cost like $110,000, but it cost us nothing. now if I was expected to fork that over I'd be all over it.

This is the problem with employer based health insurance. Some have great plans while others have absolute crap. But the biggest problem is that people like you have no clue how much it actually costs. If you were personally responsible for your own insurance, you would see how bad things are. If everyone had to purchase their own insurance, prices would come down.

If most were personally responsible for their own health insurance they could not afford it.
That is the problem.
Prices would drop some I suppose, but at the cost of more deaths, etc.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Richard Kirsch: It's the Prices, Stupid: Consumers Don't Drive High Health Care Costs

But the reason that health care costs so much in the United States is not that we consume too much health care; it's that we pay too much for what we consume. As Uwe Reinhardt and three other health economists summarized succinctly after comparing the prices we pay and the amount of health care we use in the United States with other developed countries, "It's the prices, stupid."For example, we make one-third fewer doctor visits a year than people in other countries but we pay an average of $59 for an office visit, compared with $31 in France. Our doctors make a lot more money than their colleagues in other countries. Adjusting pay across countries by purchasing power, U.S. doctors get paid about two times as much as in others. A Congressional Research Service analysis found that specialists in the United States are paid about $50,000 a year more than would be predicted, even considering the higher level of wealth in the United States.

Talk about the obvious. I, and others, have repeatedly pointed out that the way we buy insurance is the primary reason that health care costs are so high. Apparently you think the way to fix this is divorce the consumer even further from paying for health care, and then complain about how the costs keep going up.

Have you noticed how cosmetic surgery and corrective eye surgery have gone down in terms of real dollars over time? Could that be because, since insurance does not directly pay for these services, doctors actually have to keep prices down in order to sell their services to consumers?

It is the lack of competition, idiot.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

This thread is still on fucking point, it is the prices and not the insurance, the prices for medicines and doctors visits for shit that isn't even major is still higher in the United States' most private health care system.

You are still in Arizona trying to watch spring training and the baseball season already started.

 

[auditor0007]

I will say one thing....it's not like the Insurance companies do not negotiate for the absolute best price they can get from the hospitals.....they DO NEGOTIATE for cheaper prices and they do get much lower prices and rates than the person who does not have insurance.

20-25% of the cost of medical care comes from all of the paperwork involved....i had read once that a hospital like John Hopkins has over 100 different payment plans because of all the different insurance companies that they deal with and have negotiated prices with.....

What a waste of money.....

Although they do negotiate for the best prices they can get, that doesn't always translate into the cheapest prices an individual can get. Here is an example. I need certain lab tests done on a regular basis. Now that I have insurance through Ohio's high risk pool thanks to "Obamacare", I get my lab work done through my local provider. The thing is, I still have to pay out of pocket because it is part of my $2500 deductible. The first time I went this route, and the last, my labs cost me $235, after the insurance company's discount. I can get the same labs done on my own for $125.

Now this isn't always the case. My treatments now cost me around $100 out of pocket. When I was without insurance, I was paying $145. So there I save a little. Of course, I still have to pay my $400 per month for my insurance. The only thing it pays for is my doctor's visits which I have three per year, and I still have a co-pay. All other services are part of my deductible, which I will never meet unless I have something catastrophic happen.

my insurance is not much better, i pay about the same each month as you, ( a little more) I only get 1 visit to the doctor a year covered without having to use my deductible and my deductible is 2500/5000k for the 2, as well...only this is for both Matt and me....matt's company pays the first $400 of the deductible.

the rest up to us, and then the insurance company will pay...so basically catastrophic insurance....

it stinks to high heaven....we only had this one plan to choose from.

You just have to love all those choices you have with employer based insurance.