
The Crushing Cost of Health Care - jayzee
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304441404577483050976766184.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories
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chairsofter
The thing that most people don't realize and the media surprisingly never
talks about is the fact that Medicare and Medicaid consistently underpay for
treatments given. Somehow the government gets away with only paying 2/3-3/4 of
the actual cost, leaving the hospital to foot the bill. It's so bad that many
clinics don't accept Medicare because it simply causes them to hemorrhage too
much cash.

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travisp
Yes, I learned this from a talk at the University of Chicago Hospitals --
Medicare/Medicaid almost always paid less than a dollar for every dollar in
costs that they incurred (I think the quoted average number was closer to 50
cents on the dollar but I could be wrong). The only way they made up for these
costs was from patients with certain types of private health insurance (not
all types because some like Blue Cross had essentially negotiated rates very
very close to cost). Without these patients, the hospital would not have been
able to afford the Medicare and Medicaid patients.

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ftwinnovations
I know the term "Death Panels" pushes a lot of peoples buttons, but it sounds
to me like a government agency that decides that someone, and later when money
is more tight that some-subset is too expensive, is basically just that - a
Death Panel.

As rough as it is to stomach sometimes, I'd have to say that the people who
"deserve" better treatment are the ones who worked hard and smart and are able
to pay for it. Life is not fair, and saving for terrible contingencies helps
mitigate those very risks.

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jonhendry
More importantly, it ignores the fact that this already happens, except it's
insurance companies, not a government agency, that do it.

"Life is not fair, and saving for terrible contingencies helps mitigate those
very risks."

For many hard-working people, it's impossible to save enough, or to have saved
enough, for such contingencies. The simplest example would be a young couple
whose child has some wildly expensive condition.

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ftwinnovations
That was the point about "life is not fair" and again about "mitigating" the
risks. I didn't say it removes the risks. Nothing does, not even big brother
taking all our personal responsibility and freedoms away.

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mmagin
Poor title. It's not clear that these very expensive patients really account
for the bulk of the cost problem we're facing.

On the other hand, it is worth considering the ethics of such a situation. At
least as depicted in the article, it seems hard to understand how prolonging
treatment in this case really benefited the patient, regardless of the cost.

