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The first time he was patted down, at Newark Liberty International Airport, Mikey was 2. He cried.
Mikey Hicks, 8, Can’t Get Off U.S. Terror Watch List
And there are those that want the government to be the “single payer” for healthcare. If they can’t manage a list of 15,000 people, I don’t think they’ll even come close to managing 300 million people’s health.
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What's Wrong With a Single-Payer System?
I know the good doctor Jay Parkinson has addressed this before, but I think it’s worth taking another look.
Thanks…it’s actually very simple. It doesn’t matter who pays for healthcare if doctors are incentivized to do as much as they can and the processes of delivering healthcare are such a convoluted mess with no deliverer nor payor of healthcare responsible for your health. The government could try to streamline the process of reimbursement so doctors can get paid, but then they could also one day decide to pay half as much as they currently do to physicians. This essentially makes physicians government workers and that’s too risky to devotees to social status. I didn’t pay $250K and spend 9 years of my life working my 20’s away to become a postal worker. This simply won’t fly in America. Doctors won’t go for it and there would be a massive exodus amongst physicians out of the single-payer plan and into that cash-based second-tier. We’re already seeing that. Doctors are dropping Medicare. Why? Although Medicare always pays on time (it’s a nice little streamlined process for getting paid), they pay very little. So many physicians think that getting paid on time doesn’t outweigh the sacrifice of getting paid very little.
All of these top-down reformations don’t really matter. Even the CBO says that costs will continue to rise at 8% every year with Obama’s proposed reformations.
Specialists know they can’t continue making as much money as they do. They will have to cave to something that’s not as good as they have it now, but nowhere near being a government worker. Insurance companies know that they can’t expect the average American to pay 40% of your pre-tax income toward healthcare (which will happen in 8 years even with Obama’s proposed reformations). Hospital systems know they can’t control local doctors who independently contract with them. If they try, physicians threaten to leave them for the competition. And Big Pharma knows that they can no longer make money on blockbuster drugs with their current business model (huge investments with very little chance of return). When I speak to these groups, they know exactly what I’m saying when I say they are living in a fantasy world if they believe this can and will continue.
I now say the pressure is on. The first company who can create small scale healthcare “systems” rooted in today’s technology and careful process design along the lines of mini virtual Mayo Clinics that can deliver healthcare at half the cost with marked efficiencies will win…and they’ll win big. Healthcare will be reformed through disruptions just like many of the businesses from the 20th Century have been disrupted by smaller, much more effficient companies without the baggage of the 20th Century. It’s either disruption or literally force doctors to become government workers. And last I checked, it’s a free country bound by the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.
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A quick overview of why healthcare is so expensive
If you read any article about our healthcare system, read this. And for any person who thinks that government run, single payer healthcare, “let’s change who writes the checks for healthcare that costs double what it should” is the answer, here’s the moneyquote:
When it comes to making care better and cheaper, changing who pays the doctor will make no more difference than changing who pays the electrician. The lesson of the high-quality, low-cost communities is that someone has to be accountable for the totality of care. Otherwise, you get a system that has no brakes.
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Took my dog to the vet, then looked at my HSA. Noticed I paid vet 20% more for annual checkup than ins. pays pediatrician. Sad
Reminds me…I’ve started collecting photos I take of medical clinics vs. veterinary clinics in the same neighborhoods. If anyone has some good examples, send them my way…but here’s the first. Just goes to show that when people pay their own hard earned money for healthcare, providers start competing on price and quality and appearance…essentially, the consumer experience.
Make all physicians paid by a single governmental payer and where’s the incentive to provide the consumer experience in healthcare?
The quality and monetary cost of making healthcare “free” is much more expensive than mandating transparency and encouraging good old fashioned competition in healthcare - something Obama isn’t even talking about.
vs.
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Obama Presidency Could Bring Cheaper Medicines, Universal Coverage
While there’s no clear view yet of the specifics on the health front, a few ideas are pretty much off the table, the LAT writes. Those include a government-run single-payer health care system on the left and, on the right, a system rebuilt largely through tax incentives to individuals for purchasing insurance on their own.
But don’t get your hopes up, reformers. It’s easy to agree on principles of change and then see the good cheer disappear when it’s time to make something happen. “Once you get into the details, the consensus is going to vanish pretty quickly, I suspect,” Stuart Butler, VP for domestic policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told the LAT.
I wholeheartedly agree with all of this. Any change that decreases the revenue of the pharmaceutical industry, the hospitals, specialist physicians, and other interested players in this $2.3 trillion dollar industry will be met with the fiercest resistance that can be lobbied in the beltway. However, any change that increases the revenue of insurance companies (such as the industry’s much salivated over possibility of mandated health insurance!!!!!) will be fully supported by that industry. Unfortunately, the big players would rather see short term wild profitability at the expense of the literal sustainability of our country’s economy. Remember, the average family makes $60,000 today and health insurance costs $15,300. Insurance has gone up nearly 100% in the past 8 years. In 10 years, the average family will make $80,000 and health insurance will cost $33,000 (assuming health insurance rises at the same rate). This is 41% of your pre-tax income! It’s simply not possible for this to happen.
Just remember, no business anywhere in the world will do anything voluntarily to decrease their revenues, especially in the land we call the free.
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Health Blog : Obama Says Single-Payer Health Care Makes Sense
If there’s anything that could destroy our health care system and make it look even more like the post office, it’s government-run health care. Why not eliminate the incentives for doctors to practice more care and do costly procedures at the expense of the consumer? That would be a step in the right direction. But government run anything is probably the worst solution to anything. Trust me, I worked at the Maryland State Department of Health. I saw all kinds of people just dying for the weekend and retirement just doing enough to get by.
Come on Obama. You’re smarter than that.
After completing a residency in pediatrics and one in preventive medicine at Johns Hopkins, I started a practice for my neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn in September 2007. People would visit my website; see my Google calendar; choose a time and input their symptoms; my iphone would alert me; I would make a house call; they'd pay me via Paypal; and we'd follow up by email, IM, videochat, or in person.
Fast Company calls me The Doctor of the Future. I've got a design and consulting firm called The Future Well. Read more about me here.
