How to reduce health care costs

[struggle4progress]

Poll question: How to reduce health care costs

[Spinzonner]

1. I don't think there's much demand for Appendix transplants

[McKenzie]

2. get rid of tobacco for a start

I know the damned weed is addictive; I am a reformed smoker so I sympathise with anyone who can't quit. However, the sheer cost of treating people with tobacco-related diseases is huge. The amount of money that could be redirected...just think. And, look at who the tobacco industry bankrolls. Another good reason for getting rid of the stuff.

I'll now shut my self righteous gob.

[cornermouse]

3. Have you noticed that there seems to be an increase

in scenes with people (particularly key characters) smoking on tv?

[McKenzie]

4. I don't watch TV but I'm not surprised

they need to sell the stuff with more subtlety now that they're getting their arses kicked. The creeps are now targetting the Third World market instead. Just what those countries need to strengthen their economies; health care costs that will increase massively in the future.

[cornermouse]

6. They've begun to target the American market again as well.

For a while, there was some sort of taboo and you really didn't see many people smoking and if they did, they were usually the villain. That's changed.

[Poppyseedman]

5. "How to reduce health care costs"?

Don't get sick.

Seriously, the best to drive down costs is to promote healthy lifestyles and make "all health costs" a 100% tax deduction.

For the poor who can't afford basic care, give them vouchers for basic health care.

Oh' and some serious tort reform to drive down malpractice insurance for the doctors.

A full 75% of medical tests are done simply to satisfy the legal dept as a hedge against potential law suits.

[cornermouse]

7. How about some serious reform to cap the insurance company's

fees for physician insurance?

[DrGonzoLives]

16. In the states that have passed caps,

and Missouri specifically comes to mind, malpractice insurance rates have NOT gone down. Rising rates have more to do with the stock market's shit performance starting in about 2000 than it does with torts.

I agree with deducting all health costs at 100%. The vouchers are a start for those that cannot afford health care on their own.

[no_hypocrisy]

8. How about the medical profession not acting as pimps for the

pharmaceutical industry for starters?

Pharmaceutical companies are in existence to a large degree because people develop medical conditions that necesitate control by drugs. Lots of them and expensive to boot. As necessary as food and water.

And the pharmaceutical companies depend upon doctors to be their sales representatives.

Medical costs could be much lower if people were "healthy" enough to only visit their doctors for maintenance, not survival. Meaning, no inevitable need to be on 4-5 or more drugs permanently that are unaffordable, not to mention no need to visit the doctor and get lab tests for monitoring of the drugs' effectiveness.

Physicians could be part of a plan to stress healthy lifestyles that would discourage high blood pressure, high cholesterol, some forms of cancer (lung) etc., things that are not necessarily "inevitable" like hereditary conditions. But as things stand now, they only seem to wait until you have a "condition" and you are compelled to go on a lifetime regime of an army of pills in order to stay alive, or have the illusion thereof.

What if there was a program where with the better understanding of diet, exercise, lifestyle, etc., a patient would not be held hostage to expensive drugs like anti-hypertensives, cholesterol drugs, blood thinners, aspirin, to name a few. If physicians didn't wait for the inevitable "the only way you can control this is to take this drug for the rest of your life".

Since I don't see this health maintenance as mainstream program in this country, I am only led to believe that your health is being compromised by your doctor, if even indirectly. And thus, your medical costs are too high.

[Osamasux]

9. Reduce the administrative overhead and limit frivolous lawsuits..

It drives up costs at every level. Standard, consistent forms instead of each hospital, insurance company, state and doctor having their own versions of the same set of questions. Hey, wait a minute, didn't my President propose that ten years ago?

All malpractice cases reviewed for merit by a panel of experts before being allowed to go to court. Any lawyer being rejected three times by these panels for attempting frivolous suits is banned from bringing further cases. Hey, wait another minute, didn't my candidates propose this last year?

[bemildred]

10. Get rid of HMOs in favor of a national Health Service?

Like other "advanced" countries have?

Is it too soon to admit that HMOs are a total failure as a cost
cutting measure, which is what they were sold as way back when?

[SarahB]

11. 90+% of lawsuits are from less than 5% of the physicians

If the various boards of physicians did a better job policing their own profession, it would take care of much of the liability issue (much of which has to do with the profit margins of insurance companies as much as physician error).

How about universal health coverage instead of for-profit groups paying for our health care? Cheaper and much more efficient.

[HuckleB]

13. That's a misleading statistic.

You must look at the specialties of the physicians being sued as well. You can't simply cite a statistic like that, as it is meaningless and out of context.

[SarahB]

15. Granted.

I'm sure a greater percentage of obstetricians have been sued as opposed to say, podiatrists. My point remains that physicians' organizations would serve themselves better if they were to better police and take care the chronic, repeat offenders.

[HuckleB]

17. Yes, that would help.

Some. At the same time, the same goes for lawyers and other professions. And I'm sorry to say that they do little in the way of ethics in the real world.

[SarahB]

18. My dad's an ethical lawyer.

He's poor one too though. Not to say there aren't ethical lawyers with more money, it's just harder sometimes to be one. Overall though, I fear too much in the way of tort reform because it's the only thing "the little guy" has left when he or she has been wronged by someone in a higher position of power. There's definitely issues within medicine, but also issues of corporate responsibility at stake.

[HuckleB]

19. I'm not for tort reform at all. It's a bogus joke.

I'm just a bit cranky today. Seems like there's some big time doctor and nurse bashing going on around here. There are issues within every field, and that's what I hoped to point out in my crankiness. And, yes, I would be for medicine and the health care professions in general, setting up panels to review complaints and issue consequences to peers. In fact, I think it's necessary.

[DrGonzoLives]

12. Preventative medicine

Health insurance companies should be forced to pay for preventative measures rather than the expensive shit down the road. It WILL save everyone money in the long run.

[HuckleB]

14. Yes. That's a start.

[Sgent]

20. Actually its a wash....

Although good preventative medicine can save some money, it often just prolongs life until something more expensive comes along. As horrible as it is to say, an aggressive form of breast cancer is much less expensive than someone living to 90 with mild diabetes, heart diseases, etc.

[DrGonzoLives]

21. That doesn't make a lot of sense

We shouldn't worry about preventative medicine because other stuff will eventually happen anyway? That makes no sense - the medical profession has been screaming for years about how preventative medicine lowers costs because you prevent worse things from happening.

Aggresive breast cancer would only be "much less expensive" because the person who has it is probably going to die anyway, and the only treatment offered is pills to reduce the pain.

[HuckleB]

22. Huh?

Preventive medicine means "to prevent" a number of diseases. It doesn't mean simply living with mild forms of other diseases. Yes, some people will live longer despite having mild forms of some diseases, but that doesn't make preventative medicine something that causes more expense.

[eridani]

24. Actually, it does in many cases

Some cigarette company a few years back got into serious hot water for lobbying the Czech government with a report demonstrating that smoking reduced health care expenses by killing people off before they got into the age demographic that has the most health care expenses. Smoking doesn't interfere with prime work years or raising kids--it kills you just when you are about to get expensive.

Similarly, with my family history of diabetes, I've been pretty successful keeping my a1C levels within reason, using a cheap glucose meter, metformin, watching out for high glycemic index foods, and exercising. I'm going to live to be much older, and require much more care of all kinds, than my grandmother, who had been dead and buried for seven years when she was my age.

On the other hand, intervening in phenylketonuria with a strict low phenylalanine diet during brain development prevents brain damage and retardation, therefore saving a lot of money.

I'd say it was a wash.

[stevebreeze]

23. single payer national health care...it's the only real solution!

we spend more money on insurance companies then on any other aspect of health care. Insurance companies add NOTHING to quality of care. Of course we can't just outlaw them overnight. What we should do is (a) make health care insurance mandatory for all employees. (b)provide for a pay or play option. employers who have part time or temp help would pay a payroll tax. This would also be available for small employers. Kind of like a Medicare + drug insurance.

In a short amount of time more and more employers would migrate to the government, and therefor free of profit, and therefor cheaper plan.