There is a simple reason healthcare is expensive. Millions of executives, investors, providers and nonprofits are financially rewarded for increased healthcare costs.
Who is in Medicaid? Popular programs may be in the chopping block
72 million people in the United States are enrolled in Medicaid, a federal and state health insurance program for people with disabilities or low incomes.
The author argues that market distortions encourage insurers to keep costs down and do not control costs. Employee-based health insurance reduces competition and leads to integration between pharmacies and physician practices. This article proposes giving families medical funds directly to use in catastrophic planning and health savings accounts.
At university, I applied to a Christian nonprofit medical clinic. I hated that. The patients were decent people trying to provide to their families. Instead, they accidentally crushed their families with medical costs.
These patients had lost all dignity. Everything I said felt unnatural and loved, so I decided to help make healthcare affordable.
However, I have always been skeptical of expanding health insurance. It adds people with rising premiums and deductions and often denies care. Certainly, the number of people halting care has reached a record high as the uninsured rate reached a record low.
The rising costs of health insurance hampered the income of middle class members as employers spend less on wages than they spend on healthcare. The average cost of a family health insurance plan is an astounding $25,500. This is twice as many as 2008.
Currently, General Motors spends more on healthcare than steel, while Starbucks spends more on healthcare than coffee beans. And the end is invisible. Health insurance costs are expected to rise by 8-9% this year due to distortions in the four markets that make health insurance companies unable to manage costs.
Health insurance covers everyday and catastrophic events
Auto insurance covers collisions rather than brake repairs. Similarly, health insurance should not be generic drugs and should cover heart attacks.
Insurance-related prices for generic drugs are higher than 80% of the hourly cash prices, but it would be much more difficult to cut prices if those drugs are sold directly to consumers, like gas or eggs. Insurance also loses on administrative costs that generated 10 managers for all doctors.
Health insurance has a fixed profit margin
The Obamacare architects were shocked that some insurers had taken away one-third of their profit revenue, so they demanded that the insurers spend 80-85% of their revenue payment claims. As a result of the ASA, insurance companies are now striving to increase the costs of claims (see Chapter 1 of “American Illness: How Healthcare has become a Big Business and How Can You Get It Back”).
Like Visa and MasterCard, insurance companies make more profits when more money is spent. Despite Mark Cuba's costs and drugs being sold for $35, they may pay $9,500 for imatinib and oral chemotherapy drugs. Drug prices have already been reduced. They are not included in the insurance network.
Health insurance provides care as well as paying for it
The emperor of health insurance companies, UnitedHealthcare is the nation's largest physician employer and third largest pharmaceutical distributor. It also pays for itself a quarter of all its claims.
If it is owned by Geico, the mechanic shop will not reduce their claims against them either.
Health insurance is paid by the employer, not by the individual
Employers rely on brokers to lead them to the best health insurance plans, but insurance companies shamelessly cover those brokers to increase their healthcare costs.
Currently, American healthcare is plagued by corporate socialism. There, constipation health insurance company oligogoly decides what health care patients have, where they have, and how much they have. Health insurance was mistakenly employed when the government freezes wages to prevent workers from robbing military manufacturers. Employers instead promoted health insurance to attract workers, and the IRS codified the arrangement.
The arrangement is engraved on innovative, non-profit health insurance startups. Because it is much more complicated to guarantee an entire group of employers than a single individual. They also strangle the practices of independent pharmacies and doctors who have no leverage to negotiate viable fees with insurance companies, so they integrate with companies that do so.
Healthcare should be managed by consumers
The next step is to correct that mistake. Employers should directly provide their families with $25,500 to spend on health insurance. These families opt for affordable health insurance that covers only catastrophes and place the rest in their health savings accounts (HSAs). They pay cash to most shopping healthcare and push prices down. And they will actually be able to afford the deduction.
Most Americans can't afford $1,000 in emergency costs, but the average family deduction is $3,700, which brutally confiscates $25,500. More people need to get health insurance, but each person needs to do that much less.
Employers who cannot afford health insurance due to the lowest income earners can allow small and medium-sized businesses that do not have leverage with insurance companies to offer the same benefits as large companies. Employers should not choose a car or house for their employees (bringing them back when they leave) and not choose their health care.
Critics point out that although HSAs don't tame medical costs, the contribution of the average annual employer HSA of $1,300 is too small to give patients a meaningful “in-game skin.” Most money in so-called “consumer” insurance plans is directed by the insurance company. HSA is like marriage. If you put only a small portion of the effort needed, they are worse than nothing.
Critics also worry that health care is too complicated for patients to understand (as if the insurance company understands it). That's because hospitals are trying to avoid being open when they use patients. If there is a mystery, there is a margin. The more agency patients, the less predatory health care is.
When big companies accumulate cash, higher spending is not the answer
The natural reflex when you meet patients who have been fooled, poverty, harassed or humiliated by expensive health care is to increase your healthcare costs, but there is no amount to satisfy the healthcare industry complex. The US spends the highest percentage of GDP on healthcare. You need to spend more careful on healthcare.
There is a simple reason healthcare is expensive. Millions of executives, investors, providers and nonprofits are financially rewarded for increased healthcare costs. The only way to make healthcare affordable is to financially reward hundreds of millions of individuals to cut costs.
The best regulators are empowered consumers. They train functional markets or dysfunctional markets in the game. They should have the right to medical expenses where they work hard, and health insurance conglomerates should not confiscate those dollars.
Micah Moughon receives an MBA in Healthcare Intensive from Vanderbilt University and has specialized experience in large health insurance companies, small healthcare startups and healthcare nonprofits.
