Over the weekend, Fed Head Ben Bernanke went on the record as saying we had a health care problem in this country. Here’s Reuter’s and BBC coverage, but if you would rather read the actual statement, it’s here, with footnotes.
It is worth pointing out that the three factors Bernanke singles out are — in this order — access, quality, and cost. Since by “access” he means “insurance coverage,” in many ways it boils down to “how are we going to pay for it” and “are we getting what we need at a reasonable price”. Some will correctly point out that just because you have insurance doesn’t mean you are getting the right health care, or that the bills are paid.
Because he is an economist, it should be no surprise that his focus is heavily tilted towards the money involved. And in the end, another notable economist by the name of Greg Mankiw summarized it: “Ben’s talk is, however, very sensible–a good overview of the issues without saying anything sufficiently interesting that it might prove controversial.”
Elsewhere, the American Medical Association is meeting this week. They issued their first “report card” on insurers Monday. It rates insurers on accuracy and timeliness. You can read it for yourself using the links here. If you think people should be promptly paid fair earnings for the work they actually do, this is an issue of critical importance.
Although this article is about doctor dissatisfaction in general, it brings several interesting facts to our discussion: lots of paperwork that has little to do with providing medical care (driving costs up); “perceived… loss of professional autonomy” as they are second-guessed by insurance company clerks miles away, who never even went to medical school; denied payments with short appeal windows (in an environment where the insurance company has months to decide if they are paying anything at all); concerns about malpractice suits that may or may not have merit; concerns over the rising cost of insurance to cover said malpractice suits; declining revenues, even before taking into account that Medicare reimbursement will drop by 10.6% on the first of the month; and a “looming shortage of doctors, especially in primary care, which has the lowest reimbursement of all the medical specialties and probably has the most dissatisfied practitioners….”
These problems must be addressed as part of any serious “reforms”, because the one thing we have really learned from the Massachusetts plan is that when people have the means to pay for a doctor, they see one. Or at least they try. Mr. Bernanke tells us 16% of our population is uninsured currently. Insure them and they will want medical care. When demand rises sharply with no parallel rise in supply, any economist can tell you what will happen next.
Perhaps if we can do something about all the non-medical stuff a typical doctor has to deal with, they can increase capacity?
In closing: what idiot thought this was appropriate?; Dyre said what needs saying about the Associated Press; if you need a chart to figure out how to nap, you are probably in desperate need of one; congrats to George and Brad; I didn’t even know Tom Colicchio had a blog, let alone that he had thought seriously about the issues of working mothers; I predict that this will cost so much money that it will be used as an excuse to dismantle the Americans with Disabilities Act; time to cave in on spying on innocent Americans without any freakin warrants again; and about the President’s plan for offshore drilling? There’s not enough boats to do the job! But I’ll let Dave Johnson dismantle the rest of the rhetoric.