Bad Medicine - By David Morris

[mulethree]

Bad Medicine

By David Morris, AlterNet. Posted January 10, 2005.

Attacking patients or their lawyers won't cure what ails the health care industry. Insurance reform is a better place to start.

http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/20936/

"One of the major cost drivers in the delivery of health care are these junk and frivolous lawsuits," President Bush has told the American people, offering up his proposals to cap non-economic damages to patients injured by medical negligence. Here are seven facts that prove him wrong :

1. Insurance rates do not vary with the amount of claims paid out as much as with the amount of investment income that comes in.

"During the 1990s, insurers competed vigorously for medical malpractice business, and several factors, including high investment returns, permitted them to offer (artificially low) prices ... " according to the Government Accountability Office. When stock prices and bond interest rates fell, insurer income plummeted, prompting companies to increase rates to make up for the losses. Even the Congressional Budget Office has said that at least half of the rate increases from 2000 to 2002 were prompted by declining investment returns. The other half were a result of major companies, like the Saint Paul Company (now Saint Paul Travelers), withdrawing from the malpractice insurance business altogether because of the investment return declines. Thousands of physicians were forced to scramble for alternatives. Many charged exorbitant prices. The insurance crises in some states, like West Virginia, Nevada and Pennsylvania, may largely be attributed to Saint Paul Company's withdrawal.

2. - Medical malpractice insurance accounts for less than 2 percent of overall health care spending. Even that percentage is falling because insurance rates have been rising at less than half the rate of increase in overall health costs.

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http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/20936/

[Warpy]

1. Things that ARE driving healthcare costs are numerous

and don't include malpractice payments, malpractice insurance, or even defending against malpractice suits that are eventually thrown out.

Greed. Hospitals are now for profit, insurance companies are all for profit, and we all know about the gouging by the drug companies and how they fight tooth and nail to get their generous 17 year patents extended and keep generics off the market. Medicine was always seen as a nonprofit service industry until about 25 years ago, with good reason. Sucking profit out of any system degrades service. This is annoying in Walmart, fatal in healthcare. All areas now treat healthcare like a commodity and illness like a consumer decision, with disastrous results.

Duplication of services. Hospitals within any given area strive to be all things to all people and that means springing for the latest technology out there in every single specialty. Markets that could be served quite adequately by one MRI scanner will have four, with a pricetag of a million or so each.

Paperwork. Each insurance company plus Medicare has its own set of extensive paperwork which is incredibly detailed and takes hours of clerical time to complete. Estimates have put 30 to 50 cents of every hosptial dollar toward administrative overhead, which means paperwork.

Piss poor preventative medicine. Yes, this costs the system a lot of money. People with poor coverage are likely to be much sicker and need much more advanced care when they do present for treatment. This happens to insured patients whose HMOs stonewall them.

These are a few of the main things driving costs wne why the cost of every part of the system is inflating at such a rapid rate even as service continues to degrade.