Is Healthcare Armageddon Next?
The current credit crisis has some uncomfortable parallels in the finances of medicine
Innovations like health savings accounts that get patients to focus on cost reductions seem to work but are handicapped without ready information on cost and quality. And insurance markets must be restructured nationally to get away from fully loaded policies and enable people to find coverage that suits their individual needs and pocketbook, from someone with a pre-existing condition to the young healthy bachelor in search of an affordable catastrophic policy.
Changing our 50-50 blend of private and public spending into a single-payer system clearly is not feasible: Costs in countries with such systems are growing at rates similar to our own, and the $3 trillion federal budget could not swallow an added—and growing—trillion-dollar obligation. The way forward is to set aside rigid ideologies and focus all stakeholders, including doctors and patients, on sustainability—before insurance companies and hospitals go bust and the common folk face healthcare foreclosure.
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