Comments on: Health Care and Detroit: Killed By Government http://www.thelibertyvoice.com/health-care-and-detroit-killed-by-government Fiercely Independent News and Commentary Sat, 16 Feb 2013 17:48:30 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Jose http://www.thelibertyvoice.com/health-care-and-detroit-killed-by-government/comment-page-1#comment-11801 Jose Thu, 01 Apr 2010 15:03:28 +0000 http://www.thelibertyvoice.com/?p=3149#comment-11801 The problem of high healthcare costs in this country is one of supply and demand, not one of uninsured people. The supply of medical professionals is less than the demand for health service providers. As a result, the prices are high. So to fix the problem of a shortage of healthcare providers, one must see what causes too few medical professionals, in particular primary care physicians, to graduate. Well, unlike most countries in the world where the medical profession is no different than any other profession, requiring only 5 or 6 years to complete, in the US doctors have to go through Pre-med. Now, Pre-med is nothing more than a 4 or 5 year degree with a focus on science, although plenty of students take the MCAT with degrees in other disciplines such as economics or business. So when a student in the US is barely starting medical school after having completed a 4-5 year Pre-med degree, in countries like Australia and Mexico a student is very close to graduating from medical school. The 4 years of Pre-med add absolutely no value to being a doctor and only server, deliberately, as a barrier to entry to the profession. So to be a doctor in the US a student has to be in school a minimum of 8 to 10 years. This is a huge investment in time and money that not many people are willing to undertake. Those who do go to medical school come out with lots of debt that they pass to the consumer.

The second reason why healthcare is so expensive is the cancer of litigation. Doctors have to spend around 25-30% of their revenue to insurance against litigation. These cost too are passed to the consumer.

So my solution to reducing healthcare cost is to increase the number of medical professionals coming out of US universities by eliminating the costly Premed requirement. Offer a green card to any foreign doctor willing to work in the US, provided they pass a rigorous exam. This is already done but the AMA has quota limits to ‘protect’ the profession, i.e. keep the doctor supply low. And lastly, put the burden of insurance premiums on those patients who are afraid of malpractice. So if you think Dr. John may amputate the wrong leg, insure it for a 1 million dollars. On the other hand, if you trust Dr. John will do the best to preserve your health, then you sign a waiver inoculating him from litigation. The would apply to hospitals. The moment insurance companies realize that Dr. John is a crappy doctor, they will tell the patient that insuring his leg will cost more money than if he went to Dr Peter who has no malpractice claims to his name. The market will favor the good doctors over the bad doctors and the good hospitals over the bad ones.

This solution increase the number of healthcare professionals and reduces the cost of malpractice insurance premiums doctors pay. The result is more doctors who make just as much because they don’t pay so much insurance and a lower cost of healthcare to all Americans.

This is a free market solution that is easy. I doubt the AMA would like it. I doubt the government would like it. But it would be good for America.

]]> By: ER RN http://www.thelibertyvoice.com/health-care-and-detroit-killed-by-government/comment-page-1#comment-11705 ER RN Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:01:19 +0000 http://www.thelibertyvoice.com/?p=3149#comment-11705 I fully agree Gov. has driven up the cost of HC. Frist off let me make clear that I want everyone to have good health care; however, nothing is free. 36 years ago when I became a RN most small cities had a hospital with a small ER that was just that an ER. Since Medicaid does not pay a decent amount for MDs, they won’t see Medicaid and little Medicare. Thus patient’s have no where else to go, so they just go to the ER, and believe me 95% of these visits are not necessary. It is worse now than 20 years ago, as this patient population is now so dependent they come and come often for nothing. It is now a culture of those who never expect to feel bad for a minute in their lives without help from the Gov. and they seem to view the ER as an extension of the Gov. Little hospitals long ago went out of business, now larger cities bear the brunt. In the largest Medical Center I worked in we saw 30,000-40,000 per year that could have been treated by a routine Dr. visit or common sense. They come in mass with their Medicaid card and they come often. Rather than pay 50 bucks to a walk in clinic the Gov. pays a 2000 bucks to the ER as you all know. Think of the billions that have been wasted and will be wasted. The hospitals pass the loss off to the Private Insurance companies in the form of higher prices, and those costs are passed on to policy holders, namely you. Medical workers have been screaming this for years yet no one listens or does a thing, there is no accountablity, no incentive, no innovation, no oversite, when the Gov. runs things. There is no fraud protection nor worry about cost. It is insane. If they want to help all have good health care they need to let the doctors, nurses etc. set up a system that could provide this without the massive waste we have now. I truley believe I am going to see large hospitals bankrupt and closed in the next few years when 30 million get health cards and head to the ER 20 times a year.

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