Healthcare Crisis:
What's Fact? Where Do You Fit?

Summary:

Healthcare has reached a crisis level. What caused this? We will tell you where we are. How we got here. Where we are likely to go from here. What will be the probable impact on you. And, what are the best options for you and your family ?

Spiraling Costs:

Healthcare costs exceeded an average of over $12,600 per family per year in 2008. Such high costs are beyond the limits of many employers, through which most health insurance has been provided in America. The percentage of employers with 200 or fewer employees that offer employee benefits declined from 68 percent in 2000 to 58 percent in 2006. For smaller employers, the decline has been even greater. Small businesses can no longer afford benefit costs that continue up and out of control.

Why Has This Happened?

High employee benefits costs threaten the survival of businesses and the physical and financial well being of individuals, whether or not they have employee health benefits.

You want information. You need solutions. You’ll get them here.

Why have these things happened? You may or may not care why we are in this crisis. You may just want solutions that work for you. And, the sooner, the better!

Medical Lawsuits:

One controversial cause of higher healthcare cost is the threat of medical lawsuits. Physicians claim that litigation is a major reason costs are rising. They pay higher liability insurance premiums. They order more tests to build medical files to protect against litigation.

On the other hand, attorneys and their political allies claim that protecting against medical malpractice is more important and worth the higher cost. What do you think? Give us your reaction or comments by clicking here.

It’s not our intent to try to make you an expert in this field. That’s what we do. Our solutions will give you information on the likely future for healthcare. We’ll introduce you to options. Guide you to good solutions. We’ll show you how to minimize management costs and distractions. We'll introduce you to the Fitness Culture.

But, if you have a better understanding of how and why we got into this mess, you’ll make better choices to get relief. And, you’ll be less likely to step into an undesirable unintended consequence.

An Unintended Consequence:

The underlying causes of our problem are unintended consequences. The US is dominated by an employer centered system. Employers pay the costs as an employee benefit. Medical facilities and providers deliver the services. Insurance companies and HMO’s administer the programs and control funding, billing the employers.

The employees, the actual consumers, receive the benefits but have little or no responsibility. Most never see a bill. They have no concern for payment or value received. The cost controls normally imposed by value-conscious buyers are often non-existent. Employees are, in fact, rewarded for sickness and absenteeism. The result is out of control costs.

Crisis Causes:

The biggest problem with our healthcare crisis is high cost. What are the specific causes? There are many. The following are most prominent:

1. Consumer patients have not shopped for value, because they do not pay;

2. The employer-centered system encourages higher incidence of employee illness, claims and absenteeism;

3. Medical innovation and new technology offer better treatment, but usually at higher cost. That’s good if necessary, but too expensive if unnecessary. There’s little focus on doing proven things cheaper because consumers do not demand it;

4. State insurance requirements have inflated costs for all patients for the benefit of a few special interests;

5. America’s litigious climate has forced doctors to practice more costly defensive medicine;

6. The uninsured tend to overuse our most expensive emergency care facilities, many as charity cases at taxpayer expense;

7. The graying of America. Our aging population, dominated by the 78 million baby boomers, are increasingly having greater healthcare needs and costs.

Indicated Solution Options:

All of the above causes have had an adverse impact on medical cost and on the expense of health insurance. The first two causes are within your control. They are just out of control. They offer the best options to forge an affordable new fitness culture mindset with a wellness attitude.

With a few exceptions that I will cover later, the last five causes may be beyond your control, but not beyond your influence. They are political in nature. Their impact on you and your family will most likely be through taxation and governmental regulation. Their effect will be alleviated or aggravated in the political arena. As such, they are outside the solutions we offer.

Check out the following pages on Causes to understand where you are.

What are the implications for you and your family? What are the best options available to solve the healthcare issues for you? What are the possible implications that affect your family?

Causes:

Then, to find the best relief options for you, go to our page on Health Cost Solutions.

Are medical lawsuits a healthcare
crisis problem to be solved?

How do you think the threat of medical lawsuits have contributed to healthcare crisis costs? Have you had an experience with this issue? Is this a problem to be solved? What resolutions would you like to see? Tell us what you think.

What Other Visitors Have Said

Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...