Smoking Expenses

    In my last post I mentioned trying to keep people healthier so they don't have as many complications and I didn't think about the number one preventable cause for cancer, smoking tobacco. During 2000-2004, cigarette smoking cost around 193 billion dollars in medical expenses. 193 billion dollars that could have been prevented,  there is so much talk about health care but sometimes health care only treats the problem after it started where if we could strive to live healthier lives we could prevent the problem from ever occurring. If we were able to provide more and better ways to get over nicotine addiction, than we could cut health care expenses and make people healthier as well.

Cutting Costs

        A major concern about health care is how we can cut costs. Health expenditure reach 2.5 trillion in 2009 according to the Department of Health and Human Services, and is only projected to increase. When talking about reducing health expenditures we cannot sacrifice the quality of health care, so where can we cut expenses that won't compromise our health?

       According to doctor David Ludwig,who says that, "Society could spend on thousand dollars now for comprehensive medical care for an obese child, or it could spend one hundred thousand dollars later for that patient's coronary artery bypass surgery." Doctor Ludwig, in basic terms, is saying that we could spend some money now for an obese child to become healthier, or we could spend lots of money on the medical conditions that could occur if nothing is done. I don't necessarily think this is a complete solution to reducing health care expenditures, but according to Dr. Richard Carmona, the Surgeon General of the United States, says that obesity is the fastest growing cause of disease and death in America and nearly two out of every three Americans are overweight or obese. With that being said a healthier and less obese America could surprisingly cut down health expenditures.

       Another way we could reduce costs recommended by Doctor Jacques Moritz, would be for insurance to only cover serious medical concerns. Doctor Moritz goes on to say that our current insurance model does not encourage patients to take care of themselves, it rewards patients for being sick rather than for being healthy. This could be a great way to reduce expenditures and relates with Dr. Ludwigs idea, by trying to encourage healthier lifestyles for Americans. There are many ideas and theories about reducing health care costs but these are just a few that I believe could be simple and beneficial.
     

Massachusetts Makes New Beginnings

Yesterday, October 17th, 2011, in Boston Massachusetts, Democrats are working toward a plan that encourages global payments to networks or care providers for keeping patients well. This will replace the fee-for-service system that creates incentives for excessive care by paying for each visit and procedure. Basically, this new plan will give networks an annual fee for the care of each patient with higher payments for patients deemed to be greater health risks and with bonuses for high-quality care. The healthier networks and organizations can keep their patients, the more reimbursement they can have as profit. This plan will require all insurers to accept all applicants nationally in 2014, if the new federal health care law survives (Goodnough & Sack).

With anything political there are always going to be those who appose the idea. The most recent annual work force study by the Massachusetts Medical Society found that nearly 60 percent of physicians and higher rates of specialists said the were not likely to join a voluntary global payment system. Without voluntary support from that leaves it up to congress to pass a bill to have a global payment system for health care, and with bickering Republicans and Democrats it is sure to cause major disagreements between the two opposing sides.

I believe a global payment system would benefit everyone. It would give incentive for insurers to want to keep  their clients healthy, which is supposed to be their job, and when they are able to keep their clients healthy insurers will be able to profit which will still provide incentive for Insurers to stay in business. It doesn't provide a plan to cut the budget of health care but it helps to give almost everyone health care coverage, and I believe that is more important than worrying about how much debt we are in, and also it doesn't increase spending on health care.



Goodnough, Abby, and Kevin Sack. "Massachusetts Tries to Rein In Its Health Costs." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 17 Oct. 2011. Web. 18 Oct. 2011. <http://nytimes.com/2011/10/18/us/massachusetts-tries-to-rein-in-its-health-care-cost.html?pagewanted=1&ref=healthcarereform>.