Health Care
One issue really stands out when it comes to health care – it’s expensive. I don’t hear much talk about lowering the costs of the care itself. What I’m hearing are plans to make every citizen buy insurance and pay enough extra so everyone living in America will have some.
Does that sound really strange to anyone else? How do such ideas gain popularity? It strikes me that a vastly better way to help folks get access to medical treatment is to change a few rules. For example, the costs would probably come down dramatically if competition in the medical community were not just allowed, but encouraged.
Here’s what I mean. What do you know about the last doctor you went to? Is he or she a good doctor? I don’t just mean personable, but a good physician - statistically, half of them will always be below average and about two percent will be really bad. Has he or she made a lot of mistakes - prescription errors, procedural errors, diagnostic errors, etc.?
Wouldn’t it be nice if we knew which doctors were really bad? If we knew that, we could avoid them. The effect of such a choice by patients could be remarkable. For one thing the really bad doctors would likely go out of business thereby raising the general quality of health care. There would be fewer law suits and lower damages awarded thereby lowering the cost of medical insurance. Lowering costs not just for patients, but the costs doctors pay to insure their practice which would, in turn, allow them to lower their fees.
The other thing you would need to know in a competitive medical environment would be what the doctor charges for various things. You could know, for example that two good physicians do the same procedure and one charges $100 and the other charges $300 for the same thing. Wouldn’t it be natural to go the one who charges less? That being the case, soon they would all charge less, just to get patients.
That is just changing the way physicians market their services, but the same could be done for hospitals, care centers, nursing homes, drug manufacturers – everybody involved.
It seems to me that after a short time, the cost of medical treatment would become very affordable for most citizens and the quality would go up – probably increasing the general health and longevity of the citizens.
Throw in a few other fixes like legal tort reform and changes in marketing health insurance and there would be low-cost, high-quality medical care for everyone.
This seems to me like a no-brainer, what do you think?
Does that sound really strange to anyone else? How do such ideas gain popularity? It strikes me that a vastly better way to help folks get access to medical treatment is to change a few rules. For example, the costs would probably come down dramatically if competition in the medical community were not just allowed, but encouraged.
Here’s what I mean. What do you know about the last doctor you went to? Is he or she a good doctor? I don’t just mean personable, but a good physician - statistically, half of them will always be below average and about two percent will be really bad. Has he or she made a lot of mistakes - prescription errors, procedural errors, diagnostic errors, etc.?
Wouldn’t it be nice if we knew which doctors were really bad? If we knew that, we could avoid them. The effect of such a choice by patients could be remarkable. For one thing the really bad doctors would likely go out of business thereby raising the general quality of health care. There would be fewer law suits and lower damages awarded thereby lowering the cost of medical insurance. Lowering costs not just for patients, but the costs doctors pay to insure their practice which would, in turn, allow them to lower their fees.
The other thing you would need to know in a competitive medical environment would be what the doctor charges for various things. You could know, for example that two good physicians do the same procedure and one charges $100 and the other charges $300 for the same thing. Wouldn’t it be natural to go the one who charges less? That being the case, soon they would all charge less, just to get patients.
That is just changing the way physicians market their services, but the same could be done for hospitals, care centers, nursing homes, drug manufacturers – everybody involved.
It seems to me that after a short time, the cost of medical treatment would become very affordable for most citizens and the quality would go up – probably increasing the general health and longevity of the citizens.
Throw in a few other fixes like legal tort reform and changes in marketing health insurance and there would be low-cost, high-quality medical care for everyone.
This seems to me like a no-brainer, what do you think?
Labels: care, doctors, health, hospitals, insurance, medical
posted by Sam | 5:41 AM
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