Healthcare waste
Veritas Omnia Vincit ends us a link to a report that charges the health care system waste of $750 billion every year;
More than 18 months in the making, the report identified six major areas of waste: unnecessary services ($210 billion annually); inefficient delivery of care ($130 billion); excess administrative costs ($190 billion); inflated prices ($105 billion); prevention failures ($55 billion), and fraud ($75 billion). Adjusting for some overlap among the categories, the panel settled on an estimate of $750 billion.
So, while the Defense Department certainly wastes a lot of money, they at least provide the service they promise (dead bad guys). The Defense Department is facing $1.2T in cuts over the next 10 years, while the healthcare system wastes almost that much in a year.
Category: Health Care debate, Military issues
But Jonn, Obamacare will fix all of that. It will do for medicine in the US exactly what Social Security has done for retirement.
(For the perceptually-challenged: yes, I’m being sarcastic as hell.)
When the g/f moved in with me (BTW, she says hi, Jonn) we became a multi-generational family with the addition of her kids and her mother, who has mobility issues.
I’m seeing first-hand the fraud, waste, and abuse in the Medicare system even with her living at home. Entire industries built on getting as much money out of the system as possible while at the same time delivering so-so care to the elderly and long-term medically challenged.
This does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling for when I reach retirement age, should I be lucky enough to do so.
At least illegals can get free health care at nearest emergency room, courtesy of the generous American taxpayer – now constitutung less than 50% of the population. Can’t pay? no problem – whether its treating gunshot wounds or delivering anchor babies – somebody else will pay the bill. Only in America folks.
As a Medicare Advantage fraud investigator for a medium sized health plan, I can attest to the amount of FWA that occurs within the healthcare system (I’ll always be swamped with cases). By far the largest loss is due to unnecessary services/procedures (either through defensive medicine, or medically unnecessary services) FWIW, abuse and fraud are virtually identical, except that intent can be proven in instances of fraud. In the above example, defensive medicine is waste, medically unnecessary services amounts to fraud.
Oh the joys, efficiency and dollar savings of Big Gubbment services over private enterprise.
/sarc off
“Unnecessary services.” I love that. That happens when the physician taking care of you disagrees with the government/insurance decision to let you die. Really, who needs professional medical judgment applied on an individual basis? What we really need is to do away with physicians altogether, and just let the politicians, accountants, and “fraud investigators” take care of therapy.
billo,
There is no restriction on access, just a decision on who’s paying for it. Sounds an awful lot like the debate over the contraception mandate doesn’t it?
Brian: In many cases the procedure you need won’t be covered unless you have diagnostic tests or other procedures that you don’t need. Thus, you and/or the insurance company end up paying for services that are wholly unnecesary.
“Unnecessary services.” Things like lab work, x-rays, MRI’s, CT scans, and ultrasound. Yeah. Have you ever seen a translucent human walking around? Nah … me either. When the doctor suspects a condition, either you wait for something to fall out in the road, or you do followup.
Insurance companies apparently would rather you wait for something to fall out in the road. Actually attempting to identify and / or stop a condition before it becomes a real problem is an “unnecessary service.”
Bah, humbug.
And when was the last time your X-rays or ultrasound were’nt covered? I just finished a case where an ophthamologist conducted the same series of diagnostic eye tests on virtually everyone who walked through the door, regardless of the reason for their visit. That was almost $150,000 of taxpayer money lost to fraud in just 18 months. That was just to our plan, that didn’t include other plans and Medicare Part B.
Pinto,
If your plan doesn’t cover something that you and yout Dr. think is necessary, than appeal their decision. Have you and your Dr. provide them evidence why the procedure has sound backing and should be covered. If it’s because there is an annual limit on your plan that you’ve already exceeded (common on lab/Xray procedures), and now you have to pay out of packet, than you may need to move to a plan that doesn’t have those limitations. It’s just like homeowners or car insurance, there are tons of plans and insurers, but it’s up to you to do the research and find the plan that best fits your specific situation. BTW, my company is a non-profit, so there’s no shareholder incentive to keep profits up.
When I read this report, what I took away from it was the idea that as we move forward looking to bring our budget deficit inline there are areas that we can address through efficiency that might aid in bringing the budget inline while not reducing services or essential departmental budgets like defense. Even if the efficiency only addresses half of this amount we are still talking .375 trillion.
It has highlighted the issue for me. However, to say “At least illegals can get free health care at nearest emergency room, courtesy of the generous American taxpayer”, as Devtun does, is not factually correct. There are plenty of countries that provide basic healthcare free at the point of use. Also, that illegal is much more likely to want to participate in society, and consume when healthy.
Thanks.