Posted on 01/22/2024 4:13:09 AM PST by MtnClimber
Our government obsesses over the number of uninsured while insured Americans die waiting for health care.
Numerous recent articles advise investors which healthcare stocks to buy and which ones to avoid. Other economic reports confirm healthcare as one of the fastest growing segments for jobs in the economy. These writings fail to report that as stockholders profit and as more healthcare jobs are created, patients suffer and die due to the seesaw effect.
Stocks and Patients
A 2020 study compared ten-year (2007–2017) performance of top healthcare stocks to patients’ access to care. The time period extended from before the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — passed in 2010 and implemented in 2014 — to after full implementation and thus included effects associated with the ACA on stocks and on patients.
Over the ten years, the seven largest healthcare stocks all increased in share price, with average gain of 307 percent (range: 157 to 635), while the Standard & Poors Index gained 80 percent. Over the same time period, the maximum average wait time to see a primary care physician increased from 99 days to 122 days.
As stockholders gained value, patients lost access to medical care. While this is a statistically significant (p<0.0001) temporal association, that does not prove cause and effect. One may infer causation based on how health insurance companies profit.
Health insurance prices are fixed according to contracts with health plans after negotiation with state governments. Since insurance companies can increase revenue only by signing up more people, their best way to increase profit is by reducing costs — i.e., spending (on patients). This is done by the “three D” strategy: delay, defer, deny authorization for care. Thus, the longer people wait for care, the longer insurers keep premium revenue, and profits rise...
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
It seems that there are efforts to use DEI to prioritize health care for minorities which will ensure that more republican-voting white people DIE waiting at the back of the bus.
It’s socialized central planning. For your own good at a price that almost no one can afford. University DEI administrators rage in anger and envy at the growth in health care administrators.
Thanks to Deep State, and the willingness of practioners to knuckle under, the US now has a de facto NHS.
Clap for carers!
The article claims that 91% of the 500,000 new healthcare jobs added under 0bamacare were for bureaucrats, administrators, rule-writers, regulation compliers, compliance officers, overseers, mandate-enforcers (BARRCOME). Something that only a leftist could be happy about.
The insurance companies must have loved the COVID lock downs.
All preventative care was stopped, not delayed but stopped.
All most all rehabilitative care was stopped.
The government said, “Go home until you are dyeing then go to the hospital so we can say you died of COVID.”
Maximize profits by killing people. WHAT A DEAL!
The NHS is the UK’s largest employer.
Think about that.
I feel like our entire society is a Potemkin Village. Nothing is as it appears to be. The News, the economy, the justice system, science, climate, elections — all of it is a lie.
I’ve had better luck with pharmaceutical stock like Abvie which paid a great dividend and they have a large array of products. I don’t own any atm and not advising to run out and buy it.
The author writes like an economist, not a doctor.
Of course, this is what he actually is.
the nation looks at how the government run V.A. healthcare is operating, and don’t like what they see.
i.e., one goombah specialist of type per city, or, 2 hr. drive to go see one, only on specific days.
case in point, only guy in town to het V.A. blessings to do arm venal care for dialysis quits. Now, from central Louisiana,, comes the trip to and fro between Lafsyette, Lake Charles, or Baton Rouge.
And exactly what happened when Medicare was mandated
The govt prevents practicing medicine except by their standards
The only way this kind of idiocy can perpetuate is through third-party payment schemes that mask the real cost of medical care by hiding it behind a curtain of bureaucracy.
BARRCOME (bureaucracy, administration, rules, regulations, compliance, oversight, mandates, enforcement) sucks all of the capital out of the system. What also happens is that the providers are at least 20% less efficient because they spend more time doing the documentation. The electronic record is a joke as there are 1800 different products certified. None of these proprietary products talk to each other because they would have to share code which would cut their profits. Since different specialties require different EMRs specific to their type of practice, to the providers and patients this means that the data is not shared between provider platforms. Regulations requiring more data collected shut down virtually all small Family Practice groups because the expense of hiring a data manager to massage their data made them unprofitable. This data collection was supposed to reward quality, but only if you were in the top 20% were you rewarded. If you were in the bottom 20% you were penalized even if you hit 95% of the metrics. Now virtually all family practices work for a large healthcare system which has the capital to afford the additional expenses. The practice of medicine is a relationship business that requires the practitioner establish a rapport so that that the patient feels comfortable discussing personal matters. Some patients require more time to actually tell their story. Medicine now is a transactional business that only allows billable time slots. Providers work harder and produce less ending in a moral injury making them choose between what they are told to do and what they know is right.
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