Rob Bessler writes…
The theater that played out at the white house last week was disappointing. The republicans stuck to their message that the people don’t want a bill with everyone’s pork in it and the democratics pushed changed because the status quo will not work. The issue people is the cost curve. Warren Buffet said it best in my view. “The current model we have is like a giant tapeworm. sucking the life out of American competitiveness in the global economy. American cars won’t be able to compete if $1500 of every car is spent on the excess cost we have over foreign countries baked into every car.” The same holds true in every industry whether planes, or goods and services. The democrats are pushing that this is the insurance companies issue as well. There are outliers in any industry but the insurance companies overall profit margin of 3.7% is not the problem with our 2.7 trillion dollar spending this year.
Mr. Buffet again said it best. “If the margins were so good, I wouldn’t be in the property and causalty part of the insurance business over healthcare.” The issue is as the now famous New Yorker article stated, over utilization. If you want to prolong your life for 3 to 6 months for the most horrendous and unfair of diagnosis we humans know, there is no better place to receive care than in the United States, but we have to stop this run away train. The American people need to embrace that choice doesn’t equal quality, personal accountability to ones health matters and that we have to start paying for outcomes vs volume. Until this happens, we won’t bend the cost curve because the incentives are not aligned and we won’t have any money to ensure the 30 to 40 million people that all have proposed require coverage. Let your congressman know how you feel and get involved.
Visit the SHM web site to be directed to your congressman. Let them know that in the short run getting rid of a 21% pay cut wouldn’t hurt either 🙂
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