Posted on 01/09/2007 12:50:08 AM PST by bruinbirdman
"Oh my, my, my, my ... What are we to do? If only the Government would step in and fix everything!" (/s)
Wonder why! ~barf
"We are not worthy! We are not worthy!"
It's obviously not a demand side problem. There is two trillion dollars of demand already. It's a supply side problem. They need to eliminate regulation that prevents people from entering or investing in the industry.
Wouldn't these $ be better $pent on $omething worthwhile, like Globle Warming?
"Leading the increase were hospital services, which grew 7.9 percent to $611.6 billion and accounted for 31 percent of all U.S. health care dollars in 2005. Rising labor costs amid a sustained worker shortage were major factors, according to the report, one of the most comprehensive available."
Too few doctors. Too few healthcare technicians. Too few nurses. Too few healthcare workers all around. So why is this? We spend more than $611 billion on them a year? We're not paying them enough?
No. The problem is that the government regulatory scheme is designed to reduce the number of people employed in this industry. The regulators have hit on the brilliant idea that the problem with the healthcare industry is that we have too many people employed by the industry. Go figure.
"...spending for Medicare -- the federal insurance program for the elderly and disabled -- grew 9.3 percent to reach $342 billion last year."
Lyndon B. Johnson, one of America's biggest liars ever to become president, assured us that Medicare would never exceed 9 billion dollars. Think of that every time the Dem liars want to start a new program and give us their phony cost estimates. Government has run up the price of health care in the US to its current absurd level. Their cure? They want to take it over completely and run it as efficiently as they do welfare and the post office.
The government ran the price up?
Health-care spending grew 6.9 percent
Heck that's cheap! My insurance premiums went up 33% this year! And now Arnold wants me to pay more for the illegal aliens who already get free healthcare.
I am baffled.
Overall, it went up by 6.9%. But notice that hospital costs went up 31%, and the primary component of that cost is labor. I can assure you that the hospitals did not increase their employment by 31%, and they certainly did not increase the amount of labor per patient by 31%. I'm sure that it's primarily a matter of paying more for the same amount of labor. And that does not happen unless the demand for labor goes up a lot faster than the supply.
The problem is that we don't have enough doctors, nurses, and medical technicians. You can increase the demand all you want, and it's not going to increase the availability of healthcare if you don't increase supply. It's just going to bid up the cost.
Guess I should have used a sarcasm tag.
My brother-in-law is a contractor who does a lot of work in the million+ dollar "McMansions" that have popped-up in Florida over the past few years.
According to him, just about half oh his clients are involved in Health Care (pharma, administration, insurance, etc). Not doctors, mind you. Managers and sales reps.
I don't know who is driving up the cost of health care, but it is naive to blame the government alone.
I know, that's why I posted my question. There is very little reason to blame the government for the cost of health care, nearly none.
The price of medication is higher because of medicare? The cost of surgery is higher because of fertility treatment coverage on insurance? Hospitals document treatment becasue it's the law and not because of the patients? I'm not very convinced by your current list.
I forgot the original sin of government and health care costs.
The system of employer funded health insurance that arose during WW2 due to wage controls. That led to the initial uncoupling of demand from payment. The government THEN proceeded to make it worse with medicare etc.
So health care is expensive because some companys pay for health insurance. There is certainly no law demanding that they carry health insurance. OK, if there is then the coverage is incredibly variable from one job to the next. Health care coverage is a perk carried by employers to attract employees.
By the way, if you pay one million dollars for health insurance and never buy a band-aid, your health care cost is zero.
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