Health care costs have been on the rise for the past several years and it’s feared that in the future health care will be so expensive that very few will be able to afford it. So what can be done to lower the cost of healthcare and increase the quality without increasing our taxes and decreasing coverage? That seems to be the million dollar question these days! I believe that access to good health care is a god given right to everyone. However, financing health care and allowing its availability to everyone becomes difficult.
The main reason why health care is so expensive is because of technology, prescription drugs, chronic diseases, aging population and administrative costs. The availability of new and more expensive technology and prescription drugs fuel health care spending not only because of development costs but because it generates a new consumer demand for these products. Chronic diseases are of greater prevalence in our country over the last century. It is estimated that health care costs for chronic disease treatments account for over 75% of national health expenditures. In regards to our administrative costs some people argue that the mixed public-private system creates overhead costs and large profits that are fueling health care spending.
Now that we know the reasons why health care is so expensive how do we go about fixing this mess? We can control and lower health care costs through, preventative care, increased consumer involvement, investment in information technology and improving quality and efficiency.
If there was more of a focus on preventative care such as screenings, education and even financial incentives to encourage workers to participate in wellness programs; it would help to decrease prevalence of chronic conditions and avoid incurring the long-term costs of treatment. This means that the member of our senate and house need to vote for the bills that support this idea.
Increasing consumer involvement regarding purchasing is another way to control health care costs. A “consumer driven” health care allows for more price transparency which will make consumers more price sensitive and cautious purchasers which allows for further consumer and employer savings. The idea of making consumers more responsible for their health care and health care costs can also be very impactful on the overall health care costs. Insurance payments are a third party system; most people generally don’t even pay their health care bill or even look at it. Increasing consumer involvement within paying for their health care bills will make consumers more aware of the costs of the services that they received and less likely to run to the doctor for every problem they have.
Improving quality and efficiency of health care can overall improve the health care system. In order to improve the quality and efficiency many employers in the health care system offer initiatives to employees, such as the employer giving a bonus to the doctor who has the lowest return patient rate at the end of the month. This incentive will encourage doctors to spend more time and increase the quality of care to their patients so that they will leave the hospital or doctor’s office in better overall health and will not need any more assistance. This emphasizes the need to streamline the health care system and eliminate needless spending.
Greater use of technology, such as electronical medical records will increase our ability to share information more easily and efficiently and reduce overhead costs. Investing in this information technology will allow for better organization and diagnosis and it can even decrease the administrative costs because you won’t need a person filing paperwork because the IT program will do it for you.
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I think the shift toward preventative measures instead of treatment as well as health education is a great idea. Fortunately for the U.S. it is also the new focus of president Obama. I agree that health care should start focusing on prevention and avoiding allowing health concerns to get out of hand. This could certainly help keep costs down by solving health problems right away instead of allowing them to become emergency room situations.
ReplyDeleteI find that with more of a focus on preventative services we as a nation can collectively decrease the costs of health care. Prevention is such an important aspect within our health care system that often gets forgotten. I feel that screenings are a great way to catch certain diseases early and they should be done more regularly and be offered more to people of all demographics.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the shift toward preventative measures. I believe that will help with alot of our current problems. PREVENTION is the KEY. This will decrease costs greatly.
ReplyDeleteIt is very devestating to me to think that if we continue on the path we are now, that many people will not be able to afford adequate health care coverage in the future. This is obviously known by many, it's time we do something to change it. I also completely agree that focusing on preventative measures to reduce the prevalence of chronic disease will greatly reduce costs for long-term care, which otherwise maybe could have been avoided.
ReplyDeleteThe increase in health care costs has a lot to do with the baby boomers. They are at the age where nursing homes and 20 prescriptions a day are becoming a reality. I also feel that society today is less involved with their own problems and less likely to fix things themselves. The quick answer to a cough or sniffel or a pain is to let the doctor take care of it rather than trying to rest or relax to try and help it on your own.
ReplyDeleteWhile i do feel preventative measures would certainly help, I just think it is a hard sell to Americans. You are wanting them to pay for things up front rather than when they actually need the services (when sick). People always have the 'it won't happen to me' mentality so trying to get them to pay for medical care in advance when they are not sick is going to be a hard transition. But I do feel that it is definitely worth a shot. Obviously the path we are on now hasn't exactly been working. So why not try something new.
Cory Nickel
I think health care costs are off the charts per person in one year. When learning about other health care systems I have learned their advantage over the U.S is the number of primary care physicians and family doctors. Cuba is an example of this, we have more nurses per 1,000 people but they have more primary care doctors. If we could create incentives to Med. students to go into the primary care fields then maybe we could start looking more at the preventative care route. Until we have more doctors that aren't becoming specialists we are kind of stuck. Doctor's come out of med school with huge debt so the wages of a specialist seem much more appealing than a primary care physician. If we can lower med. school costs and pay the family doctors more because in the long run they are saving us a lot of money then I think we can start making progress. When people get to secondary and tertiary care the costs sky rocket!To get costs down we need to prevent with the help of primary care doctors!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your comment about financial incentives for employees who participate in wellness programs to help decrease the prevalence of chronic conditions. Seeing particular programs put in place within my own experience at my workplace (ABLE) has allowed me to better afford a gym membership at the fitness facility of my choice. I feel that more companies should offer such cost saving benefits.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that financial incentives for employees who participate in wellness programs is a good idea. Many employers will probably end up saving money in the long term because of decreased health care use among employees.
ReplyDeleteIt's scary to think once we get out of school and have to worry about health care for ourselves, that we may not be able to afford it and be adequately served. I agree with you on that preventative care would definitely reduce health care costs, because hospital stays and treatment costs would essentially be eliminated. However, in order for this to happen, we need to continue to educate on the importance of getting screenings, etc., that help prevention. Good thing we have a great group of Community Health Educators :) who are on the right path and wanting to educate about all this!!
ReplyDeleteFor starters, I do agree on many of the aspects of this reform. Preventive care is a must and people need to start taking responsibility for their health. I also agree on investments information technology by the STATES as well as improving quality and efficiency. Consumer driven health care should be a priority that involves the patient and physician and not government bureaucracy and red tape. The third-party payer system and inflation is a major reason why prices are so high. Inflation seems to be higher whenever government has the greatest influence; just look at education. There used to be a time when patients payed out of pocket for little things like checkups and routine exams and had insurance to pay for catastrophic events. Now we have a system where Medicaid and Medicare are bankrupt and we decided to couple insurance with the employer. Now when people lose their jobs, they lose their insurance and many insurance companies won't sign them on with pre-existing conditions. If patients on their own personal health insurance and had more choices, then they wouldn't be dropped after losing their job.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do not agree on, is that health care is a god given right. Rights come from our humanity in which we are born with. Andrew Napolitano says it best in this article (http://www.lewrockwell.com/napolitano/napolitano12.1.html)
I think it's pretty obvious that everyone agrees with taking preventative measures to help keep health care costs down. Earlier diagnostics are a key, especially in the field of Radiation Therapy. I know that at the UW-M hospital inpatient stays are decreasing and outpatient visits are increasing. So, we're already on the right track of trying to keep costs down.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Greg's comment, I believe that it is everyone's right to equal and affordable health care. Whether or not it's "God given"...well i guess thats a totally different argument.