March 22, 2010
The Coming American GovernmentCare Crisis & How to Stay Happily Healthy (Despite the Growing Government Carelessness for Medical Care).
This morning many Americans are celebrating the US House of Representatives passing a sweeping new Health Care Bill, nearly 3000 unread pages in length, increasing the role of the Federal Government in our US Medical Care industry.
And, this morning many more Americans awoke to worries that our medical care system just took a leftward turn toward troubles of the kind already well known to Canadians and British citizens.
So, what to think? What to do?
The NYTimes even allows for clearer eyed analysis of the coming GovernmentCare crisis
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/opinion/21holtz-eakin.html
But, the coming medical care crisis is not just about the math, but really about simple economics, i.e. supply/demand determine prices of any product or service and in the extreme determine predictable surpluses or shortages.
What GovernmentCare will cause, always causes everywhere, is shortages of care and higher prices.
Worst of all with government, any government, presuming to "operate" medical care delivery is not merely increasing costs and therefore prices, but creating inevitable, predictable shortages of supply relative to increasing demand for medical services, without a normal private economic solution to shortages which is increasing supply.
Governments do not, cannot, increase supplies of any product or service like the private sector does because government is not in business to produce anything but rather to govern producers. (Compare increasing government spending on higher education over the last 40 years and begin to see why higher ed costs have run far ahead of all other sectors of the US economy. It may be counter-intuitive, but the formula is simply clear: Increasing government spending in any market sector will drive up the costs for goods/services in that sector.)
So get ready for:
1. Increasing queues and waiting times for medical care
2. Discovering that services are unavailable altogether (we're losing 10,000 MD's from practice per year; 35,000 leave practice and we see graduating from Med schools 25,000, just as our Boomers are entering their most medically demanding years. Good luck.)
3. Learning more of us will not qualify for medical procedures (of all 3rd party payers, government payers (i.e. Medicare, Medicaid, VA, etc.) declines more claims for medical care more frequently than do private insurance companies.
4. Decline in general health of Americans
5. More literal suffering, pain, prescriptions for narcotics rather than pain-relieving costlier therapies, and more premature death.
What to do?
Personally, I continue to do all I can at age 59 to stay in control of my own health care by:
1. Staying as strong and physically active as I can with RxExercise, thereby reducing my needs for medical care and avoiding those lengthening medical queues. (For more about the RxExerciseChallenge go to http://rxexercisechallenge.blogspot.com/)
The Coming American GovernmentCare Crisis & How to Stay Happily Healthy (Despite the Growing Government Carelessness for Medical Care).
This morning many Americans are celebrating the US House of Representatives passing a sweeping new Health Care Bill, nearly 3000 unread pages in length, increasing the role of the Federal Government in our US Medical Care industry.
And, this morning many more Americans awoke to worries that our medical care system just took a leftward turn toward troubles of the kind already well known to Canadians and British citizens.
So, what to think? What to do?
The NYTimes even allows for clearer eyed analysis of the coming GovernmentCare crisis
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/opinion/21holtz-eakin.html
But, the coming medical care crisis is not just about the math, but really about simple economics, i.e. supply/demand determine prices of any product or service and in the extreme determine predictable surpluses or shortages.
What GovernmentCare will cause, always causes everywhere, is shortages of care and higher prices.
Worst of all with government, any government, presuming to "operate" medical care delivery is not merely increasing costs and therefore prices, but creating inevitable, predictable shortages of supply relative to increasing demand for medical services, without a normal private economic solution to shortages which is increasing supply.
Governments do not, cannot, increase supplies of any product or service like the private sector does because government is not in business to produce anything but rather to govern producers. (Compare increasing government spending on higher education over the last 40 years and begin to see why higher ed costs have run far ahead of all other sectors of the US economy. It may be counter-intuitive, but the formula is simply clear: Increasing government spending in any market sector will drive up the costs for goods/services in that sector.)
So get ready for:
1. Increasing queues and waiting times for medical care
2. Discovering that services are unavailable altogether (we're losing 10,000 MD's from practice per year; 35,000 leave practice and we see graduating from Med schools 25,000, just as our Boomers are entering their most medically demanding years. Good luck.)
3. Learning more of us will not qualify for medical procedures (of all 3rd party payers, government payers (i.e. Medicare, Medicaid, VA, etc.) declines more claims for medical care more frequently than do private insurance companies.
4. Decline in general health of Americans
5. More literal suffering, pain, prescriptions for narcotics rather than pain-relieving costlier therapies, and more premature death.
What to do?
Personally, I continue to do all I can at age 59 to stay in control of my own health care by:
1. Staying as strong and physically active as I can with RxExercise, thereby reducing my needs for medical care and avoiding those lengthening medical queues. (For more about the RxExerciseChallenge go to http://rxexercisechallenge.blogspot.com/)
2. Maximizing my own Medical Savings Account (before the nearing time when the Socialists in government fulfill one of their promises to make MSAs and HSAs illegal), and plan on paying myself for all my medical care exclusive of growing government limitations on access.
3. Regularly thanking my medical caregivers for staying in practice as long as they can, and being the best, engaged, active primary partner in all my medical care.
Best wishes all. Life is good, and health makes life richer. Le chayim! To life!
