Posted on 02/10/2015 9:22:04 AM PST by Oldpuppymax
According to the Federal Trade Commission, “When health care markets are competitive, consumers benefit from lower costs, better care, and more innovation.” On a superficial level, this sounds good, but the devil is in the details. A huge detail is that the health care consumer rarely pays directly for the services, and has little say over how they are performed. Likewise, the notion of what constitutes “better care” and “innovation” are hotly debated. Ironically, those two precepts often lead to higher cost, with questionable benefits to outcome.
Notwithstanding the typical high school textbook’s version, the bulk of antitrust activity (part of the FTC’s duties) has not been on the side of the consumer. Contrary to the usual propaganda, consumers loved John D. Rockefeller. He pioneered the development of hundreds of petroleum-based by-products, thus reducing much of the waste and pollution associated with refining. He paid above market wages to his workers, and made millionaires out of many of the company owners he bought out. Because of this “villain,” the price of kerosene dropped from 58 to 8 cents per gallon, and thousands of jobs were created.
Antitrust action is usually triggered by fully legitimate success, and often with total absence of any harm being done to consumers. Among many surreal antitrust actions was the case brought against A&P in the late 1940s for having food prices that were too low.
It is within this context that we examine the FTC’s new favorite target: Hospital mergers.
Hundreds of articles in trade and popular media have discussed the serious challenges faced by American hospitals. Three of the most important were raised in...
(Excerpt) Read more at coachisright.com ...
Now that Obamacare is fully on the march, let me remind one and all that Obama’s (and his minions) goal is for the closure of as many hospitals as possible. Fewer hospitals mean less access to expensive care. Sure, some people may die, but that’s the price you gotta pay working towards Utopia. Why help money-sucking hospitals merge when you really just want them to go away?
Having worked in this industry for many years I know that it is a dinosaur on life support that needs serious reinvention. Obamacare in its attempts towards that end will pretty much throw the baby out with the bathwater- However, the non-regulated health services will survive and flourish as long as these services remain “private pay” between user and provider.
Just remember - wherever doctors have gone on strike for any length of time, the death rates go down concurrently.
The giant problem with the article is its unwillingness to address, and question the mandated-by-law fiat-market-conditions it says hospital mergers are a responsible reaction to.
Also, while there is little evidence that hospital mergers ALWAYS lead to higher patient costs, there is no evidence they have ever lead to lower patient costs. As an addendum to that, there is no evidence that “not-for-profit” hospitals are on average charging less or paying their help less than for profit hospitals.
Minus Obamacare true market-directed reforms would favor less hospitals as a core to all care and loosen the reins of regulation, and who gets paid what from government entitlements and subsidies, such that a multitude of customer-seeking health care venues relying less on an “insured amount” and more from a “health care savings account” or out-of-pocket, would advance to be the heart of health care in the United States.
There is too much focus on hospitals, and it locks the governments direction into too much regulatory focus for everyone based on treatment in a hospital setting. Its like banking regulations that both affect and serve the largest banks most.
This blather of a post is entirely based on a study commissioned by the Federation of American Hospitals:
http://www.coachisright.com/understood-health-care-ftc-stop-fighting-hospital-mergers/
And it’s untruthful. Hospital mergers focus on creating very local medical monopolies by which they can raise prices. State and national-level mergers are fine, but not the sort of local mergers that create local monopolies, which jack up prices.
Sorry, here’s the link I wanted to post that shows the study was done for the Federation of American Hospitals:
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.