Health Care Costs - Why is it so high?

This election has brought a number of issues to the table but one in particular that is a concern for many Americans is the rising cost of health care. Obama, Hillary and even McCain want to get government involved in some form of other, not that is bad, just that we need to be cautious as to what kind of involvement.

Obama’s plan has some good points regarding reduction of cost, including electronic records keeping, and is the most detailed plan I have seen from the three candidates. Although not the same as the Canadian or U.K. socialist health care it would be another Washington run bureaucracy, destined to cost more to run than what it would save on the other end.

Hillary actually has a rather interesting plan, at least at face value, she plans of providing tax cuts to all those that have health care insurance and opening up the same insurance programs, until now only available to members of Congress to the general public. The problem with her plan is that it doesn’t get to the root of the problem and that is, why is the cost so high to begin with, again a band-aid on a wound that needs to be sutured.

McCain’s plan is strikingly similar to Hillary’s plan however he has added a little more meat and potatoes to his plan by supporting tort reform to help lower the cost of health care and modernization of records systems. This is a good start, but not the entire picture of WHY our costs are through the roof.

The knee jerk attitude of many is to blame the insurance companies. Believe me when I say I have no love for insurance companies, but they are NOT the prime cause for the escalating costs, but merely a secondary symptom of what is truly ailing the countries health care system. Much like the oil companies being blamed for the increase in fuel costs the insurance companies are being made the fall guy for the problems with health care.

Malpractice suits have been another knee jerk answer for the increasing health care costs but in truth the cost of medical insurance for doctors to protect themselves from malpractice is less that 1% of the current costs. However it does play a role in other respects that I will discuss later in this article.

So what are the real causes you ask? There is no simple answer to the problem, no silver bullet to kill the inflationary monster of health care, but a series of issues some of which we ourselves are to blame.

The major reason for increase in these costs is something many of us would not expect or even think of, and that is TOO MUCH health care. We have become a nation of hypochondriacs in many ways, we go to the doctor or hospital for ailments that we think we may have because of some ad or some documentary we saw on TV last night.

To further exacerbate the issue doctors are ordering tests and medications that are unnecessary and/or even harmful and causing other illness. It is not because doctors are trying to milk the patient for more money, because in most cases the doctor receives no moneys for these tests. So why do they do it? Simply because of the aforementioned issue about malpractice suits. In order to avoid these suits doctors are doing more tests and issuing more medications in the belief that if it APPEARS that they are doing all they can the patient will be less likely to sue.

There are some doctors however that DO over proscribe medications for personal gain, fortunately not many, but enough to cause concern. The era of “specialization” has also been a factor in that these doctors are paid by the case, furthering the number of surgeries and or procedures that may not be always necessary. Again I want to stress here that this is but a fraction of the doctors in this country, but still a concern and an expense in both dollars and lives in some cases.

There are some other issues that are causing these increases, some recognizable and some not so apparent. One of those less apparent is the cost of records keeping. The vast majority of hospitals have not switched to electronic records keeping and this slows the process down to be able to access and transfer patient data. Medications and previous test results as well as patient histories are being lost or to slow to arrive, once again costing us millions of dollars in proper medical care.

Pharmaceutical companies are also to blame. Their advertising has people running to their doctors for the latest magic bullet remedy. Add to this the control U.S. pharmaceutical companies have on the FDA and Congress. They have effectively stopped the import of many drugs from competing companies from other nations giving them a virtual monopoly on the industry. They have also hidden the fact that many of the drugs we take for one ailment of another are no better than some of grandma’s remedies.

Holistic medicines and health care are equally being sloughed off as “witch doctor” treatments. One example is the thousands of cases of chronic back pain. Today’s practitioners of medicine arbitrarily recommend spinal fusion, yet there has been no independent testing done to prove that this procedure actually works. Another example is carpel tunnel syndrome which medical doctors recommend surgery as the only answer. Both of these conditions I have personally seen and experienced being corrected by chiropractic and until fairly recent this form of treatment wasn’t even covered by most insurance companies.

I’m sure that there may be other factors involved like the illegal alien use of hospitals and never paying, and although part of the problem, I feel that it is one that we may not see an end to, due to the fact that none of the mainstream candidates nor enough in Congress want to stop this particular problem, it would be best that we focus on the main issues that I have mentioned above.

So how do we fix these problems?

1. Tort reform to lessen the inclination for doctors to over proscribe, as well as cut the cost of malpractice insurance.
2. Require all hospitals, clinics and private practice doctors to maintain electronic records keeping in order to facilitate less costly and quicker more accurate records keeping.
3. Open up our borders to allow foreign drug companies to compete in this market. This will not only lower prices due to competition but also possibly open up new remedies that previously have not been allowed in this country.
4. Tied into this is to restrict the pharmaceutical companies regarding their involvement with the FDA and AMA.
5. Disallow medical practitioners from owning stock in pharmaceutical companies. This removes any possible complicity on the part of doctors to proscribe needless drugs.
6. Restrict Doctors from being paid by the case and instead provide a salary a couple of the more prestigious hospitals are now doing.
7. And finally as with any issue research and education for the public and the medical industry on alternative remedies and cures.

Cost of Oil - How and Why?

I have read dozens of articles on predictions, reasons, and effects of the huge cost of oil today, and none of them seem to explain WHY the prices have more than tripled in the last two years, other than “fear” that we will soon run out of oil due to the increasing growth and demand in China and India. Frankly I am at a loss as to all the reasons why and can only speculate that there is something more than “fear” of running out of fossil fuels, that has triggered these prices.

Think about this, Mobil/Exxon, Shell and many more of the large oil conglomerates are investing in “alternative” fuels, such as hydrogen and bio-fuels, like ethanol. Major automobile companies are also switching gears to create vehicles that run on these fuels, or electric power. Toyota with their decade long investment in hybrid cars, Honda, GM and Ford all rolling out hybrids. GM is also looking at all electric, which they already had pretty much done in the 70’s but found little INTEREST and was too cost prohibitive due to the technology of that time regarding battery power. Today they are working with a Watertown MA, company that has developed or is in the final stages of developing a lithium-ion battery that is cost effective, reliable, safe, and long lived. Germany and other European countries have rolled out hydrogen based public transportation developed by a consortium of Euro-oil companies (Shell being one), BMW, and government agencies. Shell has also setup Beta Sites for hydrogen fueled vehicles here in the U.S. based in California and Washington D.C.

What is my point in mentioning all this? Simply that until there is a serious demand for alternative fuels none of these programs will come to fruition. Point in case is the GM attempt in the 70’s to produce and market an all-electric car – no one wanted it. My feeling is that the high oil prices is an attempt by oil companies, auto manufacturers, and other fossil fuel dependent business to create a market more open to development and sales of these alternative energy sources.

Unfortunately petroleum will still be a necessity for years to come due to the fact that it is not just used in the production of fuel, but also used in products that we use every day, from plastics to cosmetics, to even pharmaceutical products. It is my feeling that once a better fuel market has been established we will see a marked drop in crude oil prices but this will take years to happen.

In the meantime the poor and middle class will suffer the most, as they will not have the finances to be able to keep up with the rising costs of products and services due to the increase in prices due to transportation and production costs. This has me concerned in that it will give an excuse for the government to increase its involvement into the lives of the citizen population. The paradox is that this would be the right thing to do, to assist as a temporary situation, but as we have seen from the past once a “safety net” or entitlement is in place it never leaves and once again the government becomes more of the Nanny state than previous.

I do not think that the crude oil price increase is due to some sort of calculated conspiracy to grow government, but I do think that it will afford some of our politicians the opportunity to take advantage of the situation, and that we should be cautious of how our elected officials will deal with the inevitable repercussions of the crude oil increases.

JMO - Sound Off

JMO - Sound Off

Cost of Illegal Immigration

As those who read my posts here, and on JMO – Sound Off, know, one of my biggest issues with our current government is total lack of action regarding illegal immigration. It has been brought up to me on several occasions the totally erroneous statement that “it would cost too much to round up and deport these criminals out of the country”.  I have yet to see figures that prove this by those that hold to that argument.  I, on the other hand, have seen proof of it being completely the opposite  - it costs us more to allow them to stay than it would to deport them all – all 12-20 million of them.

The Council on Immigration Studies estimated in 2004 the annual cost of illegal immigration to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 BILLION dollars, that was three years ago. This study is reflected by other studies such as the 1997 National Research study, the 1998 Urban Institute study, and even the Inspectors Generals office of the Treasury. Research findings where gathered from the Census Bureau and the National Research council.  Also I might remind those reading this that at the time of this study there were an estimated 8.7 million illegal aliens in the country and that has nearly doubled since then and continues to grow at an estimated 500,000 more a year, thereby increasing the studies estimate to 20 Billion plus a year. 

For those interested in reading the study: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

These studies deal primarily with the direct effects of illegal immigration as it relates to taxes, welfare, and job loss for legal American’s, however there are other hidden cost’s that are not taken into account. Some of those not mentioned in this or other studies include the misuse of hospital services, primarily on the border, but are now happening all over the U.S. in which these social leaches are using medical services and NEVER paying for it. The extreme criminal element from street gang violence and drug dealing (supported, by the way, by subversive terrorists groups like MEChA) as well as murders, and rapes has cost millions of dollars in destruction and loss of life. Add to this the FACT that 30% of the current U.S. prison population is illegal immigrants primarily from Mexico, of which the American taxpayer is paying for their incarceration. Add these all up and we are looking at an estimated 340 BILLION a year, a hundred billion more than the most critical liberal think tanks claim it would cost to depart them all. 

And that is still not the entire picture, each year dozens of law enforcement people are killed or severely injured by these malcontents and asinine laws like the current law in Los Angeles California which restricts law enforcement from going after these people for immigration violations, further prohibit the just imprisonment and expulsion of these individuals. These laws are also repeated in cities like New York, Chicago, and even San Diego, Houston, and Boston, making our major cities virtual havens of crime.

Which brings me to my next point the “how” would I propose to round up and deport theses people if they are all “underground”.  But first it is important to bring up the liberal side of the argument that claims it would be too expensive to validate my earlier statement. Their argument is based on “studies” by liberal think tanks like the Center for American Progress, that have projected a cost of some 230 to 250 billion over a five year period and on the surface that would seen to validate their argument however they are basing this on employing “mass deportation”, with only a small change in strengthening law enforcement practices, which is NOT what I am advocating,  Even they admit that with just this ONE change the result would be a 10-20% voluntary exodus out of the country by illegals.

Now let’s look at what can be done to truly effect “voluntary” deportation. First we must enact legislation that turns around several of the laws in place that enable the illegals, such as the ridiculous restrictions on local law enforcement to go after illegal immigrants. Second we need to refine, and redefine the 14^th amendment that makes any child born in the U.S. an automatic citizen. Third we need to increase and enforce fines and penalties on employers that hire illegals. We also need to mandate that anyone using certain hospital and/or welfare services, other than emergencies, must have some form of proof of legal residence in the U.S. such as a valid drivers license. These steps alone will not totally correct the problem, but will probably increase voluntary deportation by another 20-30%, or even more, meaning that almost half those here illegally will have no more reason to be here, as they can no longer suck off the government teat, and will have to return to where they came from. 

As for the seriously criminal element like the rapists, murderers, terrorists, and drug dealers we treat them as we would ANY criminal, once found guilty they should be incarcerated and when completing their sentence they be immediately deported with the caveat that if caught back in the country illegally they will be subject to the death penalty. Of course we also need to erect a truly protective fence between our southern borders and increase our border enforcement on both the northern and southern borders, or all of this will be a meaningless exorcise. 

For some these recommendations may seem severe, but we are talking about the cultural, and economic survival of our country as well as our sovereignty.  We should be treating this as we would any invasion, as that is just what this is  - an invasion - by those only interested in pillaging our nation of it’s wealth and for many like those that are loyal to the Mexico First extremists like MEChA to also conquer our nation, and turn it into a subdivision of Mexico.