Health care costs

This is a really insightful and thoughtful op-ed piece about the cost of health care. The New York Times does it again and again. The article uses a popular procedure, a disk fusion, as a reference. The author weaves the story through the 2008 election and the Obama vision of universal health care and the way Americans view health care.

Well done!

In a saner world, the place where you live wouldn’t have much effect on how doctors treated your back problems. In our world, it can make all the difference.

Obama offers universal health care

Late last week Hillary Clinton unveiled her health care plans. This week it is Barak Obama’s turn. Obama is offering a complete overhaul of the health care system, which calls for universal health care.

The plan would retain the private insurance system with the addition of injecting money for expanding services. I would like to see the details for this. Also, Obama’s plan would implement a sliding scale for those that can not cover costs.

The political ramblings are ratcheting up a notch. Obam’s plan is quiet confusing when reading it. You be the judge.

“My plan begins by covering every American. If you already have health insurance, the only thing that will change for you under this plan is that the amount of money you will spend on premiums will be less,” Obama said. “If you are one of 45 million Americans who don’t have health insurance, you will after this plan becomes law.”

Hillary Clinton’s health care plan

To date, I haven’t subscribed to any of the presidential candidates. With Hillary Clinton being one of the leading candidates I thought her plan on health care would be interesting. My problem with her and all politicians is that the lip service before the election always sounds so good and after the election nothing comes to fruition.

Anyway, Hillary presented her health care plan in a speech on May 24, 2007. Highlights of the speech are a seven point plan, which as follows:

1. Focus on prevention: wellness not sickness.
2. Use more computer technology: to increase security and accessibility of records, reduce costs and errors, and share research.
3. Co-ordinate and streamline the care of chronically ill patients. The cost of caring for this patient population accounts for 75 per cent of national health care spend, said Clinton, something that she found “astonishing”.
4. Offer individuals and small businesses market access to larger insurance pools.
5. Improve the quality of care to help drive down costs.
6. Get prescription drug costs under control.
7. Reform medical malpractice: in a way that works for doctors and patients alike

For the full speech follow this link Follow this link for Hillary Clinton’s full health care plan. Warning this opens as a pdf document.

Michael Moore’s ‘Sicko’ at Cannes

Michael Moore’s media machine is slowly building.  ‘Sicko’ is knocking the socks off viewers at Cannes.  I foresee a lot of media attention on the US health care system this summer.

At least a couple of jury members have confided to friends that they would have liked to pick Michael Moore’s documentary, “Sicko,” about the U.S. health insurance industry.

The New York Times is running an article that looks at the Health care system in Cuba.  the article highlight’s Moore’s movie.  Apparently, Moore transports sick American to Cuba to get care, which in America they were unable to get.

“There’s a reason Cubans live on average longer than we do,” he told Time magazine. “I’m not trumpeting Castro or his regime. I just want to say to fellow

Job growth in New York City

This New York Times article describes “typical worker” in New York. It’s a home health worker who makes $7.50 an hour, with no health insurance and is an immigrant. I imagine this is the story in every city in the U.S. Not unlike the illegal immigrant, who is picking strawberries or lettuce, the typical home health aid is an immigrant working long hours for low pay.

Poor-paying positions in health care and social services, have accounted for most of the growth in employment in the city in the last 15 years. Indeed, without the rapid health care growth, the number of jobs in the city would have declined since 1990, according to figures compiled by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The cost of constipation

I found this little article at MedPageToday. The headline pulled me in, “Constipation Costs may Be Staining the Health Care System“. O.k., the author has a sense of humor, I like it.

Get this, annual health care costs for a California Medicaid patient with chronic constipation costs $23,000 to treat in 2002. That is up from $14,500 in 1997. Drug costs for the treatment of constipation in 2002, have an annual cost of $5000 a year. All this fun was presented at the Digestive Disease Week Conference being held this week in Washington DC.

What ever happened to prune juice, a bran muffin and a cup of coffee??

Patients are returning to their doctors repeatedly when treatments fail. Evidence for this explanation includes the fact that outpatient health care costs, which include physician visits, increased the most from 1997 through 2003 ­- from an average of about $4,500 annually to nearly $12,000, he said. Costs for controls during this period decreased slightly, from $453 to $383.

A race between pharmaceutical companies

The race for pharmaceutical companies to get their atypical antipsychotic is on. Bristol, Lilly and Johnson & Johnson are racing to get the drugs cleared for use in teenagers. The medications include Abilify, Zyprexa and Risperdal. There is alot of money at stake here. Lilly’s Zyprexa generated $4.4 billion in sales last year, and Johnson & Johnson’s Risperdal had sales of $4.2 billion. Sales of Abilify climbed 41 percent to $1.3 billion.

“There’s no gold standard for treating schizophrenia in teens, and the first company to get FDA approval for this will have a bit of an edge in this very crowded market of atypical antipsychotics,” said Les Funtleyder, an analyst at Miller Tabak & Co. in New York, in a telephone interview.

Drugmakers sold more than $15 billion in antipsychotic drugs last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The full Bloomberg article is here.