Trent Shipley wrote: >> Obama, yesterday, was right on target when he said there was no single >> silver bullet for this problem. But, we do know things can be better, >> because we are paying twice as much as the average developed country per >> person with worse than average results. > > I have heard, but have been too lazy to confirm, that there is a GDP per > capita health care spending curve, and as a very affluent country the > USA is almost right where it should be on that predictive model. What > is whacked is that relative to our per capita spending (which meet > expectations) we get crappy *public* health results. > > So health care savings probably are not in the works--unless we move off > the health care spending / per capita income curve. > > We can improve typical health care outcomes, but that will produce a lot > of health care reform losers. > > _______________________________________________ > http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/why-does-us-health-care-cost-so-much-part-i/?apage=2 An additional insight from the graph, however, is that even after adjustment for differences in G.D.P. per capita, the United States in 2006 spent $1,895 more on health care than would have been predicted after such an adjustment. If G.D.P. per capita were the only factor driving the difference between United States health spending and that of other nations, the United States would be expected to have spent an average of only $4,819 per capita on health care rather than the $6,714 it actually spent. Health-services researchers call the difference between these numbers, here $1,895, “excess spending.” That term, however, is not meant to convey “excessive spending,” but merely a difference driven by factors other than G.D.P. per capita. Prominent among these other factors are: 1 <trent:bad/>. higher prices for the same health care goods and services than are paid in other countries for the same goods and services; 2 <trent:bad/>. significantly higher administrative overhead costs than are incurred in other countries with simpler health-insurance systems; 3 <trent:good/>. more widespread use of high-cost, high-tech equipment and procedures than are used in other countries; 4 <trent:/good>. higher treatment costs triggered by our uniquely American tort laws, which in the context of medicine can lead to “defensive medicine” — that is, the application of tests and procedures mainly as a defense against possible malpractice litigation, rather than as a clinical imperative. There are three other explanations that are widely — but erroneously — thought among non-experts to be cost drivers in the American health spending. To wit: 1. that the aging of our population drives health spending 2. that we get better quality from our health system than do other nations, and 3. that we get better health outcomes from our system _______________________________________________ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
