You cannot lower the cost of healthcare without short-changing someone or something.
Healthcare costs are rising, after adjusting for inflation at an ever increasing rate simply because we consume more medical care than ever before.
Think back to when Medicare, for example, was first introduced in 1963.
Life expectancy was 68 years of age, so we only needed to cover, on average, three years of medical care per citizen.
Back then, there was NO such thing as open heart bypass surgery, let alone angioplasty, stents, and etc.
There was NO such thing as MRI, CT Scans, PET, SPECT, or power Doppler ultrasounds exams.
Knee, Hip, Hand, Elbow and Shoulder replacements were for the most part experimental, and the outcomes were often worse than NO surgery at all.
We had primitive chemotherapy, so much so that 80% of people diagnosed with breast, lung, or prostate cancer were dead within 5 years.
As medicare began to cover all these wonderful new procedures, that extended life by another 15 years for women and 12 for men, the Medicare tax was never adjusted for the increased outlay in terms of time, and extend of medicine consumed.
They are now broke!
We all want the greatest latest newest most expensive 2010 procedures in unlimited supply.
Sorry, but the only way to lower cost of insurance is either to deny certain expensive procedures, or reduce the payment to the doctors, hospitals and technologists for each procedure thru Obama's plan.
This is what will happen if they pass healthcare.
Even at minimum wage level reimbursements, rates will have to rise.
Let us ask you this:
Would you want a minimum wage doctor doing your open-heart surgery?
Case in point:
The Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act of 1988 focused on Pap Smear quality, and mandated certain changes in procedure in an effort to improve quality, and decrease false - negatives.
The State of New York tried all the measures for a year before CLIA became law, and demonstrated "NO MEASURABLE IMPROVEMENT" in quality in Pap Smears. The Feds made it law anyway, and the cost of Pap smears went up from $12 to $30, within two years.
And soon enough, the Congress was using the example of the increased price of Pap smears as evidence that the damn pathologists were gouging the poor public and that this was one reason that the benevolent government needed to take over health care!
Yes, Healthcare needs reformed, but not what they are wanting to do.
Why anyone would trust this government with healthcare is beyond us!
