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Medical Costs....

Today morning, I was listening to a piece on NPR about how a hospital has dealt with an illegal immigrant from Guatemala who met with an accident and rendered brain dead... Hospital claims that it has spent more than a million USD and eventually rented a charter plane and deported him to his home country with a State Court's permission.... Of course, there are legal battles going on now (What do you expect, then?!?!) whether it is right or wrong.... For me, the bigger picture is - A 'well-developed', 'G-8' and a 'Superpower' seems to have trouble treating a single human being, citing the cost associated with it... So, USA cannot take care of a single human being because he doesn't have health insurance! I am not here to justify the immigration part or legality of the illegal immigrant's rights... There are of course millions of US citizens who can't afford health insurance. Is it really the people to be blamed for their ability (or inability) to afford?? Let me take an example. One of my friends had to undergo an expensive diagnosis here in US. He was able to afford it somehow and it costed $x. During a visit to India, they had to undergo again the same diagnosis. Surprisingly, the instrument was the same that was used in US and diagnosis was the same procedure. Do you know how much it costed, without even an insurance?? Only 1/10 the the cost... So, what is missing here..
  1. Are Doctors's charging too much here in US for their time? - We see stories where Doctor's close their practice because they couldn't take care of the malpractice insurance and so on... Of course, compared to WWII time, Doctors get paid many fold more compared to other professions.. Somehow, other professions haven't got the same treatment, anyway..
  2. Are hospitals charging too much and paying their staff too much? - We also see stories where Nurses are fighting for their pay increases eventhough the country doesn't have enough nurses to fill the needed positions.
  3. That leaves us with insurance companies...........

So, I have decided to bash the big corporate insurance companies.... Not really!! It is the entire system that needs to be blamed.... Paul Krugman has a nice explanation here in his weekly friday column at NY Times. Well, most of his suggestions go for a government intervention in everything (Keynesian?) from economy to healthcare. Let us just stick to Healthcare.. I am no economist and I am grazing the superficial layers here... How can a good, reputed hospital in India can charge only 10% of what a hospital in US would charge for the same test/diagnosis... Krugman's article partially explains where all your money is going - to underwriting and blah, blah, blah....

Why can't the government subsidise the Medical education? Wow, that would flood the market with many more doctors and nurses with lesser individual pay. Wouldn't it? Isn't that what a market economy would do - fix the pay and salary depending on the demand/supply theory? When Cuba can subsidise Medical education, why can't USA? Well, there will be an argument on the 'quality' of education, which I won't buy... A developed, innovative and rich country like US should be able to come up with a system to deal with it, if only enough thought and resources put in it to deal with...

When a medical treatment becomes affordable, having insurance won't be mandatory, rather a choice.. You do see those small clinics successfully branching out in several places in US, like in Walmarts and strip malls... People without insurance are flocking these places and are able to get quality care at affordable prices.. Don't they??

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  1. AnonymousDecember 18, 2009 at 9:27 AM

    This one, I will agree with you one hundred percent about the ills and solution of US health care.

    One more thing to add is there has to be incentive for being a responsible healthy individual (eating properly, exercise etc). Well implementing this could pose its own problems but then we live in a country known for creativeness

    Aravind

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