Healthcare: Will 114th Congress Change the Diagnosis and Rx?

Health care insurance providers, going back to the 1920’s, have danced with legislators to guarantee a large population of insured, which in turn balances the actuary tables and leads to an inordinate but legal profit,

During the 1900’s extensive employee medical programs were developed by the railroad industry, they were not utilizing insurance companies but company health providers. Meanwhile, Blue Cross was the first company in America to offer a hospital care policy for employers.

Now let’s contrast the introduction of “wonder drugs” with today’s expanding and multi-billion dollar diagnostic industry.

One dramatically reduced the high death rate during surgery and child birth. The other, while introduced and utilized to provide early diagnosis, has peaked in efficiency. Early diagnosis should reduce costs associated with care and treatment but multiple diagnostic testing, to justify million dollar equipment purchases, has depreciated the whole process of care and treatment. How and why?

The diagnostic equipment industry has exploded in the last 10 years, ultimately for the benefit of investors. Today ordering a panel of tests will utilize equipment often with a million dollar ticket and rapid depreciation due to carefully timed introduction of newer models. The life cycle of the equipment has nothing to do with function but rather size, portability, speed, and actually less about computation or diagnostic capabilities but rather it is about keeping afloat the company’s market share and profit margin

A very interesting timeline of major medical insurance is found on PBS’ website. It details the change from employer provided health care to corporate benefit providers directing health care. It is this latter change, benefit providers directing diagnosis, treatment, and even access which was predicted by doctors over 50 years ago. Did the doctors and members of the AMA oppose a national health care plan because of concern for compromised care or as accused because they opposed inroads in diagnostic and care? Maybe the irony and answer is in this fact, the very people who talked to and listened to patients and their families opposed nationalizing health care. Moreover, those (diagnostic equipment providers, insurance providers, and hospital conglomerates) who would turn the whole process into an investor driven model endorsed national health care each and every time it was suggested. http://www.pbs.org/healthcarecrisis/history.htm

Consider this study from the National Conference of State Legislators. http://www.ncsl.org/documents/health/mrktstrofhlthins.pdf:

The market structure of the health insurance and hospital industries may have contributed to rising health care costs and deteriorating access to affordable health insurance and health care. Many features of the health insurance market and the ways it links to other parts of the health care system can hinder competition, lead to concentrated markets, and produce inefficient outcomes. Health insurers are intermediaries in the transaction of the provision of health care between patients and providers: reimbursing providers on behalf of patients, exercising some control over the number and types of services covered, and negotiatingcontracts with providers on the payments for health services. Consequently, policies affecting health insurers wil l likely affect the other parts of the health care sector.

The market structure of the U.S. health insurance industry not only reflects the nature of health care, but also its origins in the 1930s and its evolution in succeeding decades. Before World War II, many commercial insurers doubted that hospital or medical costs were an insurable risk. But
after the rapid spread of Blue Cross plans in the mid-1930s, several commercial insurers began to offer health coverage. By the 1950s, commercial health insurers had become potent competitors and began to cut into Blue Cross’s market share in many regions, changing the competitive
environment of the health insurance market.

So, as the Patient Protection/ Affordable Care Act is revisited by the 114th Congress, as the blame is tossed around as partisan motivated, as the model for long-term care and medical care for seniors has been quietly changed and devalued to “Value Based Trade-off”, as distraction after distraction is presented ad nauseam by the media. As all this takes place you and I are short changed UNLESS we

• Embrace preventative and healthy lifestyles for our own model of health care
• Support the natural healthcare industry and their education initiatives for the public
• Voluntarily and generously support the vast network of non-profit and private hospitals which have always offered care on a sliding scale (cancer, orthopedic, children’s , burn, etc)
• Evaluate and support participant-based programs which share costs
• Investigate the value of supplemental insurance programs

Contact your legislator and TELL him to put the health care choice back in the hands of individuals. This will eliminate the need to have one more TAX supported program which was actually a bailout for another industry.

Interactive picture - using thinglink: http://www.thinglink.com/scene/602634618482458624

Note:Author is a licensed insurance agent in California