Posted on 03/23/2011 6:28:26 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
A year after the passing of health reform, a new industry report revealed that consumers may be paying billions of dollars more in out-of-pocket health care expenses than was previously thought.
These "hidden" costs of health care -- like taking time off to care for elderly parents -- add up to $363 billion, according to a report from the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, a research group.
That amounts to $1,355 per consumer, on top of the $8,000 the government says people spend on doctor fees and hospital care.
"We're surprised that this number came in so high. It's significant," said Paul Keckley, executive director with the group.
"These costs can add up to billions of dollars, even eclipsing housing as a household expense," said Keckley.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Chump Change in Obamaworld.
if even CNN is turning against it, it’s days must really be numbered
Just how can this be????? The DIMocRATS and nobama promised me free health care. Lies, I tell you...all LIES! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Don’t be fooled; this isn’t a criticism of Obamacare. It’s another “look how broken the current system is” article. We can hire Deloitte to come up with any number we want with respect to “hidden” costs associated with “infrastructure defects” or making cheeseburgers for that matter.
We probably “lose” billions of dollars in productivity while in traffic, but it’s not really a valid cost assumption. On a macro level, we theoretically waste trillions.
How much will that cost go up under Obamacare? Other nations’ socialized medicine horror stories often require a relative to ride herd on the government doctors or else the patient would not get care. And just imagine the phone calls to HHS: “You call is not important to us at all. You are currently behind 234,992 callers. Before you call is answered you will be hung up on and have to start again.”
Pelosi looks just like Ed Grimley from SCTV
Just as airlines and banks have sought ways to charge surcharges and additional fees, hospitals and doctors will find alternative ways to do the same. Although doctors cannot add surcharges to bills because of contract and regulatory prohibitions, there are other ways for providers to charge more money. Some providers are promoting non-covered services as a way to recoup losses from conventional offices visits and services. Other providers are adding “boutique” services that allow patients a certain number of personal phone calls, hospital visits and home visits for an annual fee.
So when you go to the doctor or hospital in the near future, they will be more interested in selling you vitamins or offering the newest non-covered services instead of treating you for your chief complaint. And if you decline the additional services, you can count on second rate (or no) service. You might complain about the care, but if the doctor or hospital isn’t making any money on the patient, they won’t miss the business.
Or maybe it will be USSR and Eastern Europe all over again where patients will need to bring their own bedsheets and a bottle of vodka for the doctor to get any service.
It’s one thing to report it on an online news story, CNN. Call me when you actually ask Pelosi about it.
“We probably “lose” billions of dollars in productivity while in traffic, but it’s not really a valid cost assumption.”
I’m not sure why you think lost productivity is an invalid cost measure. Among major industrialized countries, Japan spends much less on health care as a percent of the economy. But the families of Japanese hospital patients are expected to do much of what nurses do in our system. Thus, unless you monetize these productivity losses, you get a very misleading impression of the true resource cost of the Japanese health system compared to ours. Informal caregiving isn’t “free” even though it doesn’t show up in any country’s National Health Expenditure accounts.
Don’t be fooled; this isn’t a criticism of Obamacare. It’s another “look how broken the current system is” article.
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Exactly right — it is cnn carrying the water for this administration yet again...
This article focuses on theoretical costs. But what about the costs of Obamacare? Shouldn’t the cost of a new government bureaucracy be added to the national health care tab? Michele Bachmann’s $105 billion. That should be added in. Higher premiums. The costs of policing a new system. New taxes (wait till we get a VAT). The problem with health care has always been its cost. Under Obamacare, society will pay more for health care for lower quality care.
Certainly lost productivity is a valid cost measure in very small sample sizes (i.e. a defined labor group working at the same task for the same company). But when you start attempting to determine lost productivity using millions of commuters, or millions of consumers of healthcare, it's not valid at all. The bottom line is that everyone has to travel to work. We don't beam into and out of the office. So commutes don't necessarily count as "lost" productivity. Opportunity loss, maybe, but we'll never be able to retrieve it, so why bother?
Same goes with healthcare. Taking time off to care for someone? Well, yeah. That happens. So do frequent doctor visits for chronic ailments. Who cares? The only solution is healthier people, but the paradox is that to make people healthier (in theory), you give them more healthcare (inducing more productivity losses).
So we have "hidden costs" of $363 billion. Tell me what that means in any relevant sense. It's just another method to freak people out.
“The bottom line is that everyone has to travel to work. We don’t beam into and out of the office. So commutes don’t necessarily count as “lost” productivity. Opportunity loss, maybe, but we’ll never be able to retrieve it, so why bother?”
Huh? I’m not sure what distinction you’re drawing between lost productivity and opportunity loss. They’re the same thing. Lost productivity is what’s lost by having to commute. The notion that this is inevitable is quite wrong. Many people work at home, for example, eliminating such costs altogether. Assuming they are as productive at home as at work, this elimination of commuting time is a productivity gain. Or other people convert that commuting time to productive use, e.g., by using their cell phones or laptops on trains as they commute into work etc.
Same with medical care. Even if the cost of laparoscopic surgery is higher than the old-fashioned kind, it may well be worth it precisely because of productivity gains. We used to keep heart attack victims in hospitals for weeks. Now we get them back to work in days etc.
Likewise, the most efficient forms of medical care do NOT require on-going care: vaccinations are generally “one-and-done” for example. That’s why they typically save $3 to $10 per dollar spent on vaccinations. Most other forms of preventive care increase health spending, on net, even though they may do so very cost-effectively (e.g., gaining each added year of life for only $3,000). Conversely, some preventive measure that saves the health system $100 buts adds $200 in productivity losses is surely not “value for the money.” That would be an innovation not pursuing, whereas an innovation that cost the health system $100 more but saved $200 in productively losses assuredly would be. But there would be no way of differentiating these kinds of medical advances and deciding which ones were worthwhile if we simply ignored their impact on productivity costs.
CNN last years news TODAY.
To the point of efficiently adding years to life, again, this doesn't happen in a vacuum. In our society, extending years on the margin costs a fortune.
So, my argument (or complaint) is thus: who cares about "hidden" costs in systems as large as the American health care delivery model? They are ubiquitous and unavoidable, and the figure $363 billion has no relation to actual, recoverable expenses.
The article is a scare tactic.
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