Need a Pie Chart for Healthcare Costs

Jon Stewart has been hammering on healthcare.
Yesterday, he surprisingly went ballistic on Obama for giving
a talk on healthcare, then being dumb enough to respond to a
non related question on the Boston cop who arrested the black Harvard professor. Obama, who stated that he didn’t know the entire
situation, criticized the cop anyway. That will sure make him
popular with civil workers nationwide.
Naturally his response was all the TV news media focused on.
The issue of Healthcare was left on the sidelines.
Way to go Obama.

When 33% of you health care dollar goes to “administration” expenses you might want to look there to cut costs.
A big chunk comes out of my pay check for health coverage yet I have to fight for every penny they pay the provider when I need care.
I had labs done in December and finally got that bill settled in June. Now multiply that by the number of claims filed on that day in December, take the amount of money owed providers for services rendered, now multiply that by the interest on that money until it was paid almost six months later. Somebody is getting a free ride.
The market place has failed miserably at proving a cheap and effective of paying health care expenses. It’s time we tried something different that dosen’t involve subsidizing the insurance industry.

Rahm Emanuel just announced that The House will vote on the Healthcare Bill next week. Nancy Pelosi was no where to be seen. It seems they will bipass the committees and go for a floor vote. This despite the fact that Obama’s popularity continues to drop daily — 49% now.

What do you prove when you force a vote which is splitting your party in half? Obama doesn’t give a crap about his party, his country or its people. Its all about him now as he shouts TOP OF THE WORLD MA.

As a president, he should stay away(specially when he has more important issue to talk about) and avoid making any racial remark, by taking sides. He is not the black people’s president as far as I know. He is the President of the United States of America. He should be the one, to calm the situation and not make it worst, as he did. His racial remark put ” more gas on fire”.

pm317:

These are excellent observations and questions in this post. The ‘healthcare costs pie chart” is crucial also to explain the american people how insurance companies price their premiums ?

This is what actuaries do (in all insurance companies). They price these things according to all the things we hear are factored in the costs.. But we need to know how they do it. And we need the Gov. explain to us why their actuaries would do it differently and how.

If we don’t understand this; how are we going to believe in a new system?

What???? This is so disgustingly political: Chicago rough tactics!!
Obama said it himself the other night:

“They will not break me; I am from Chicago”

(the “They” are all those straw-men enemies he constantly fights with )

I am disgusted….

I am not sure what exactly the insurance companies claim.

Well this is what they claim:
http://www.kff.org/insurance/h08_7828.cfm

Too much spending on healthcare needs by the consumer!!

May be this is what 0bama means when he talks about the kid not needing a tonsillectomy or the mom not needing a pacemaker but more pain medication..

Why Health Care is Costly
A variety of factors help explain why health care costs are so high and why they grow so rapidly. One factor is expanding wealth. Studies looking at the United States and other economies have found a strong correlation between wealth and health care spending – as nations become wealthier they choose to spend more of that wealth on health care.

The availability of new treatment options is another important factor. Nations can spend more because the health care community continues to learn more every day about human health and health care conditions and is able to expand the inventory of health care products, techniques and services.

Tax incentives that encourage workers to demand comprehensive health benefits also have been identified as a factor that increases health costs.13 People use more health care when insurance pays a high percentage of the cost.
[snip]
Another approach to reducing consumer demand for health care is to reduce the government tax subsidy (referred to as a tax exclusion) for employer-sponsored health insurance.

So “consumer” with his never ending “demand” and “consumption” is the problem. Didn’t 0bama say the same thing?

Yes, we should all just accept being sick, shut up and and die. That’s what they want? This is ABSURD. The overall health and longevity is due precisely to the fact that people get more educated and react quicker in seeking help and treatment: that is a GOOD thing.

I am disgusted…..

I read that the House is going to force the bill to the floor [after a three-hour meeting between Rahm & the Blue Dogs]. Would have loved to be a fly on the wall during that one.

I think we need a ouija board at this point to figure out what these people are trying to push down the voter’s throat, all in the name of “reform.” Sort of reminds me of cap & trade, all in the name of “green.”

But blaming consumers [consuming too many expensive procedures] and doctors [all those tonsils ripped out] without addressing insurance company, pharmaceuticals and tort reform is a very bad sign. Plus I don’t like the paternalistic way this thing is being driven. We’re suppose to sit down and shut up because the powers that be are trying to “help” us. They have the loose strings under control.

Which is rarely the case. And I haven’t heard anything from the Congress or the WH that would instill confidence to the contrary.

Major mess!

Thank you for bringing up “administrative” expenses. Can you imagine the expenses and bureaucratic costs of implementing a government-run healthcare system? Look at the flow chart illustrated by the Republicans. Even if it’s partially accurate, taxpayer funded goverment jobs will rise dramatically. The increase in payroll costs are not accounted for in the legislation.

Fraud in Medicare and Medicade are a huge drain on taxpayers. I recently found out that Medicare and Medicade claims are not computerized, but processed by hand. This allows unethical healthcare providers to charge for nonexistent patients or mutiple claims for the same patient. In one case, a doctor submitted claims for treating 90 patients in one day! In another, the doctor made claims for treating the same woman 9 times in one day! This is the 21st century-everything is computerized. Simply computerizing claims with a program that cross-checks for doctor, patient name, date and place of service will immediately put the fritz on fraud. The cost of computerization will easily be offset by the savings in a very short period of time.

I worked in a hospital lab 40 years ago. The outrageous profit margins generated by charges for things like lab tests, radiology, and pathology services was painfully obvious even then. People who knew more than I did told me that hospitals inflated those costs in order to cover deficits in other areas of the hospital. The problem is, though, that those costs became the accepted standard in the industry even for private, independent labs and contract labs that didn’t have deficits to cover. It was pure profit for them. Sixteen years agao Bill and Hillary Clinton told us that healthcare costs would bankrupt the country. Everybody knows what the both Clintons were subjected to. I blame the healthcare crisis on greedy vultures feasting on the carrion. Not a pretty picture. Quite disgusting.

Perry raises possibility of states’ rights showdown with White House over healthcare

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry, raising the specter of a showdown with the Obama administration, suggested Thursday that he would consider invoking states’ rights protections under the 10th Amendment to resist the president’s healthcare plan, which he said would be “disastrous” for Texas.

http://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/1504240.html

Let us hope that all states will do likewise. 36 states already have something about the 10th Amendment in the works.

Push back.

We as Americans have been inept at taking care of our freedoms for far too long now. It is time we start our own ACORN for ourselves. It is sad to say but we have to return to the mindset of our parents in 1950 America who were ready in a second to pounce on anyone, or anything they considered to be communist slanted.
We need to go to our childrens school districts be it grammer, middle, or high school and get involved, and get out of the administrations the leftie libs. Then put our own people in to make changes in the classrooms to get the indoctrination of our children stopped. We have got to insist on a return of the text books to real history and not revisionist history.
We have got to go to our universities we are alums of and do the same. Get the lib univ. presidents out, then start changing the attitudes in the classrooms. If the marxist professors dont want to go along with the program, get rid of them!
Can you believe we have slept through the likes of Bill Ayers being involved in text books that our children use, and setting up classroom learning for our children.
Start with the education so the next generation will not be raised to think that this kind of change Obama wants is OK.
Then we have to start rooting through each and every level of government to get them out.
We have slept, and they have ilfiltrated. It is our fault, and only we can fix it!

Rahm Emauel’s brother is playing a big part in Obamacare.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07242009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/deadly_doctors_180941.htm

DEADLY DOCTORS
O ADVISERS WANT TO RATION CARE

By BETSY MCCAUGHEY
Emanuel: Believes in withholding care from elderly for greater good.

Posted: 1:03 am
July 24, 2009

THE health bills coming out of Congress would put the de cisions about your care in the hands of presidential appointees. They’d decide what plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have and what seniors get under Medicare.

Yet at least two of President Obama’s top health advisers should never be trusted with that power.

Start with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He has already been appointed to two key positions: health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research.

Good for him and Texas. I pray to God, that the 10th Amendment will work for Texas and the rest of 36 States. Please, don’t shut-up. This country is worth to fight for.Our president proved every step of his presidency that he hates us ” whities”. If you don’t believe me. This is not a provocation for hate or any wrong doing. Pleae, go to canadafreepress.com and read; AT THE NCAACP, OBAMA REMOVES HIS MASK OF THE GREAT UNIFIER( written by Lloyd Marcus. My heart was aching after every words I read.

I’m Canadian. You might find one or two people in 100 who complain about our system – and only the very wealthy would want to be on the US system. The administrative costs are about 3% of the total – and the instances of fraud are very minor.
The serious down-sides? I can’t think of any. Yes, if you go to the ER with a rash, you may have to wait three hours. You might wait 6 weeks for a knee replacement – but when you get the replacement, it is, of course, free.
Doctors saw problems with the lymph glands in my chest and they thought it was likely lymphoma. I had an immediate MRI, a operative biopsy within a week and a follow-up MRI on schedule. No lymphoma, the doctors and everyone else concerned were wonderful, the time line was as quick as possible and free.
There are clinics nearby if I need a medical opinion sooner than the usual 3 days to see my GP.
We do have supplemental insurance for drugs, dental, eye exams, etc., that are not covered by the basic Medicare.
What’s to complain about? Nothing that I can see!

Our collective stupidity and ignorance regarding healthcare has the rest of those with national health in many countries wondering what kind of fools we are to accept such shoddy treatment and injustice? And be taxed and pay for the priviledge of being screwed by the big boys.

Yes, a pie chart would be a good visual once you know how to apportion what to what. That campaign money from the healthcare industry is what motivated Blue Dogs as well as GOP’ers who want to see Medicare die, do the bidding of those who bought them. Pharma and HMO’s who run america have made the profit motive is so enormous it has corrupted Baucus and the Blue Dogs along with the flaccid GOP.

There is nothing more dangerous than a party without a center. Republicans have one purpose. To obstruct,deny,spin, and prevent any healthcare from occuring. Power is the only lever left and it’s in the healthcare industry where GOP can pull some clout.

Pity the Dems as the Blues get their campaigns paid for by the Healthcares. Baucus got over a million from the health giants for his campaign. So go the rest.

We are living in a time of ineptitude,greed and corruption, and watch the great cruelty imposed by corporate greed on our right to quality health care.

We could do it. Congress doesn’t want it. So where are the baby boomers who will have no affordable insurance? Where’s the million man/woman march in Washington DEMANDING congress to move it’s butt

A very astute comment about the profit motive in our hospitals and medical systems.

Hillary and Bill Clinton as you point out, foretold the bankruptcy facing the healthcare crisis.

After picking their bones, the vultures are at it again. We allow this to happen because there is no national concerted large movement of voters that can demonstrate,vote, and harm those politically
responsible for avoiding their duty to legislate responsibly for healthcare. We the people have not organized sufficiently to force the hands of the cowardly Democrats and obstructive GOP’ers.

We could do it. But so far we remain snookered by division and ignorance. Also add laziness.

It really can happen if we make it happen and decide how to find a fair way to make it possible. Even if imperfect, a change towards affordable care would be a revolutionary beginning -just as Medicare was.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=531

Fact #10: Social Security is an extremely efficient program, with administrative costs equaling only 0.6 percent of retirement and survivors benefits.

Administrative costs account for only 0.6 percent of total Social Security retirement and survivors benefit payments.[14] According to the most optimistic estimates, even private accounts plans with very limited choices and services would have administrative costs more than ten times as high. The Office of the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration generally assumes that with private accounts that offer limited choices and services, administrative costs would ultimately consume about 0.3 percent of account assets each year. At that rate, administrative expenses would ultimately eat up about 7 percent of a worker’s retirement benefit, more than ten times as much as the administrative costs under the current Social Security system.[15]

Hillary Clinton back in l993 had sent a team of Health care researchers to research the success of the Canadian National Healthcare System.

Regardless of the propaganda you hear, the Canadian system is a decent one and no one in Canada lists Medical Bills as the reason for her bankruptcy!!

Just ask American lawyer Diane Tucker, a 59-year-old who lives now permanently in Vancouver, Canada because….of health care.

You must read Nicholas Kristof’s OpEd in the N.Y. Times “THIS TIME WE WON’T SCARE”.

There is nothing unpatriotic or shameful in the Canadian Healthcare system (since l965) that has provided decent care to ALL Canadians.
Just try to see what they’ll do if a Canadian politician stupidly acts to mess around with any aspect of this trusty “socialist?” workhorse. Canadians would lynch him/her!!

It is a shame that 50 millions are uninsured and medical bills account for 62% of bankruptcies–and U.S. is No. 37 on the health hit parade of nations, one below COSTA RICA but, mercifully, just above SLOVANIA!

Obama is a certified clown, we all know that, but if he had the guts and conviction of Hillary Clinton, this mess would have been fixed by now…

But “stupidity” allows him to overlook fact that Police investigate possible break-ins and ask for identity of person breaking in to make sure that he lives there–One third of DOMESTIC ABUSE murders are committed by husbands on restraining orders who break in to murder their “women”!

So Obummer rather than look at the facts when they are in decides to act like a Chicago Community Organizer and blame one of the parties….cause he is a “buddy”!

Harvard Legal Ethics this man never attended or flunk his lectures.

But didn’t he have a SCOLDING MOTHER to tell him to think before he opens his mouth?

no wonder healthcare is going down the tubes….

Obummer – Bush III
Obambi – Carter II

Here are five of the main reasons healthcare costs are much higher than in other countries.

1. higher prices for the same health care goods and services than are paid in other countries for the same goods and services;

Many countries mandate how much can be charged for different services. There is a cap. This hugely keeps costs under control. In the U.S. it is a free-for-all and is in no way a competitive market. The AMA keeps consumers from seeing price list for service and any kind of quality of survey of doctors and hospitals. U.S. consumers generally blindly buy healthcare services. A public option will provide a lot of opportunity for competition, as the govt plan will act like that of other countries and cap the price for services. This will like for the system to become more competitively price wise.

2. significantly higher administrative overhead costs than are incurred in other countries with simpler health-insurance systems;

In the U.S. it is an accounting nightmare because of all the for-profit bureaucratic HMOs and insurance companies. They like to keep it confusing. It works to their advantage. A government run system in many countries is a heck of a lot simplier.

although a lot of this technology is invented in foreign countries like from companies like Siemens and Philips. Despite all the technology, healthcare statistics in the U.S. are often worse than alot of other countries.

4. higher treatment costs triggered by our uniquely American tort laws, which in the context of medicine can lead to “defensive medicine” — that is, the application of tests and procedures mainly as a defense against possible malpractice litigation, rather than as a clinical imperative.

This probably needs to be reformed. A better balance needs to be found. This will likely be tackled later after the base reform process is started.

5. It is a for-profit business. You have to add in the big profit margin at HMOs, pharma, health systems, etc.

Laws regarding generics, effective lobbying in the U.S. and frankly a big money making industry where it pays to have as many people sick as the dollars go up add a big profit margin to the costs. Since most systems are run by government they are generally not-for-profit, although many countries operate both a public and private system.

There are other factors:
> American may be less healthy
> Americans are heavy consumers of medical services
> Demand access to advertised drugs
> Demand more choice of providers
> Number of physicians has grown 28% faster than the overall population in the past 10 years. As the supply of physicians increases, so does the number of services people receive from physicians
> Nursing shortage nationwide causes hospitals to compete for nurses with higher salaries
> high number of uninsured. Uninsured tend to use emergency rooms for medical care, which is higher in cost than a typical office visit.
> Some physicians order much more lab work than others, doubling and tripling the cost of their visits. They are gaming the system. Physician referrals to labs, imaging centers and ASC’s that they have an ownership interest.
> An estimated 50 million unnecessary prescriptions each year for antibiotics and other drugs. Thank the drug industry for creating demand where they was no problem.

etc. etc. etc.

It is a money making industry that has gotten out of control.

“Doctor’s compensations are also problematic: We overpay here by $58 billion. In other nations, specialists make 4 times the average salary. In America, they make 6.6 times the mean. Meanwhile, the overall profits of the system add on another $75 billion in costs. Another $147 billion in increased spending, much of it a consequence of the fee-for-service system, wherein doctors are paid based on how many procedures they recommend and carry out. Doctors with equity in facilities where they can co-refer cases conduct between two and eight times more tests than those without equity interests. Just another way the profit incentive helps us out.”

“The report finds that we overpay for prescription drugs by $66 billion. If you compare brand name drugs in the US and Canada, the same drug will cost you a full 60% more here. If you restrict that to the top selling drugs, you find we pay 230% more than anyone else. For generics, the difference evaporates. So on average, we overpay by 60-70% for pharmaceuticals, largely because we don’t bargain down the costs just like every other country.”

I suggest you read this famous McKinsey study:

http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/rp/healthcare/accounting_cost_healthcare.asp

Also see:

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=04&year=2009&base_name=why_american_health_care_costs

Thank you for this comment. Now do you know if the bill that 0bama is pushing will address any of this and if it does, to what extent?

The proposals coming out of the current healthcare legislation are attempting to set up a new framework, which may help to improve a lot of this relative to other countries. The point is it is a start of a process and a first step that will take years to evolve. Cost cutting and pressures to cut cost will evolve over time.

The private sector has done such a poor job that it is now time for the government to step in and propose a new direction.

I will also add that the proposals will also attempt to give insurance to the 50 million uninsured. This is a major achievement in its own right, even if the cost are kept neutral.

Massachusetts has been a very big success of getting more people insurance, now they just have to work on the cost cutting part of this. However, the Massachusetts solution has now set up a system, or rather pressures, were there will be much more incentives to get costs down.

Your response says nothing about the specifics in the Bill that will address these problems. So, if it is taking your word for it, I am not going to buy it. Give me the details of the Bill where these problems are addressed and tell me how they will solve the problem. I am also not satisfied with the “start of a process” as you put it. I want a 5-point (make it 10, I don’t care) plan to address problems that are well documented and understood and the solutions to them. 0bama promised transparency and we don’t know a fucking thing about the Bill and I doubt that he does either. He could not even answer the first question at the press conference — what are his stated goals and what has he told the congress on how to accomplish them?

The question is how best to fix it, and there are no convincing answers. Common sense would dictate that we first find out the reasons for the rise in costs and address them. Republicans claim that it is the rising cost of malpractice insurance. Hospitals claim that it is treating the uninsured in emergency rooms. Drug companies claim that it is the cost of drug research, thanks to the stringent FDA regulations. I am not sure what exactly the insurance companies claim. Bottom line is that the people are paying the price.

How profound. Thanks for your fascinating insight Mr. pm317. This posting sounds like the answer to an SAT essay question. Yawn. When you have a solution make sure to wake me.

dcmediagirl, if you are indeed who I think you are… why the unnecessary snark to a writer’s spouse? Everyone is entitled to their opinion of these issues, but it seems pretty harsh and classless to attack a writer or their contributing spouse on such a personal level for no good reason.

I suspect you are not the real dcmediagirl. I’ll be checking the server’s record to try to find out. You sound more like an Obot, attacking for no good reason other than to dish dirt. If you are the real dcmediagirl, shame on you.

In either event, this is a petty and rude comment to make to a spouse of a writer for the blog.

I agree with Steve in KC–It’s always OK to disagree with a writer, but why the rudeness? It sinks your credibility.