If our political leaders wonder why the United States is unable to compete in a global market with US based labor, all we need to look to is the 'broken' healthcare system. Companies continue to limit benefits, insurance and pensions to try to rein in the per employee costs that are largely beyond their ability to control.
Why is healthcare so expensive? What happened to the managed healthcare revolution that was initiated in the early 1990s?
Community based healthcare providers, mostly driven by religious charities and orders that defined healthcare in the 60s and 70s, have been consolidated by market forces into regional healthcare systems. For profit entities, such as HCA, continue to consolidate the marketplace and drive costs out of the system. So where are we failing? The reimbursement process, dominated by the $125 billion disbursed by Medicare, which included fixed price reimbursements for individual procedures, directed healthcare based on profit margins not on outcomes and the general health of the community.
Independent healthcare providers in conjunction with Local and Federal governments need to address this problem as a combined entity. Each rural or metropolitan area has a defined population of citizens, supported by private for profit, non-profit and governmental healthcare providers. Within this defined population a health index and cost of care would be created and financed by local business, taxes and federal funds. Just like the federal highway system, some areas would have to be supported by a broader population base - but the end goal would be healthier populations. Only then will the provider of healthcare have the clout to manage their impact on the profits of the drug companies and insurance providers and still have the proper incentives to drive costs out of the system.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment