Mr. Independant,
A 2008 Congressional Budget Office report on our rising healthcare costs came to the conclusion that hospital and physician costs are the largest proportion of expenses, and “most of the long-term growth in total healthcare spending has resulted from growth in either or both of these categories… About half of all growth in health care spending in the past several decades was associated with changes in medical care made possible by advances in technology.” Rising healthcare costs are mostly due to technological advances, as well as the high cost of labor (much of medicine, unlike other fields, CANNOT be mechanized). Here’s a link to the CBO report: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/89xx/doc8947/01-31-TechHealth.pdf
Why do technological advances make costs go up instead of down? Well… because they CAN! That is, pharmaceuticals or biotech companies can charge high prices because we as patients don’t care what the costs are (hey, it’s already “paid” for!) and insurance companies are willing to pay -and eventually charge us with higher premiums (to cover the rising costs -and their cut as well). If providers and manufacturers of healthcare products were pressured to compete by more cost-conscious patients, perhaps costs WOULD come down.
Insofar as the unisnured increasing the total cost of healthcare, their impact is limited, at best. From the 2007 Census data, of the 46 million uninsured, 19 million are 18-34 year olds. Another 8 million are 35-44. Only 500,000 of the uninsured are over 65. So more than half of the uninsured are young and generally healthy, while very few of our nation’s elderly are. I doubt the remaining 19 million unisnusred are all chronically ill and breaking the health insurance bank for the other 280 million of us who live in America…
You can find most of the data here: http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p60-235.pdf
More relevant to Obamacare, of the 46 million unisnures:
- 10 million are illegal aliens (Neither Democrat or Republican proposals aim to cover them).
- 8 million already qualify for Medicare/Medicaid/SCHIP (they simply haven’t enrolled).
- 17 million make over $50,000 a year -which is the average US household income…
Would you consider governemnt subsidized public health insurance for those making above the national average? Of those 17 million, 9 million earn over $75,000! Should they be included among the truly “uninsured”…? True, some may well be “uninsurable,” but I doubt they’re the brunt of the group. Subtracting the above groups leaves 11 million Americans who are truly uninsured. They should be helped… but at a cost of 1 – 2 trillion per decade? Even current proposals don’t foresee true universal coverage, but merely expanding coverage from the current 85% to about 94%. So by spending $1-2 trillion extra every 10 years, we can expand coverage by 9%…
For the most part, I am in agreement with Mr. Schwartz, Goy, and David Thompson. I recommend you read this in depth article as well: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care
