Cost of Health Care Continues to Rise
 

Health benefit brokers surveyed see health care costs in 2011 continuing to rise. The small group market will continue to see double - digit cost increases, while medium to large groups will be on the high side single digit to double - digit.

http://www.shrm.org/hrdisciplines/be...Rates2011.aspx

take the profit out of healthcare

our system is archaic and inhumane

and while we are on the subject, jail big pharma executives

I am sure you agree whell

Yeah, that'll fix it good! :eek:

I can't understand why the powers that be are so eager to kiss the arse of big pharma, they are all based off-shore. The only reason they maintain a presence here is for access to the research of NIH. The major reason for the rising cost of drugs has SFA to do with research. The increase is to cover advertising - four or five pages in every issue of major magazines - endless TV commercials, and executive salaries. What have they come up with of late besides skippy stiffeners.

You forgot to mention the extra bribery expenses last year.:(

Regards,

D-Ray

FYI - 8 of the 15 major players in the pharma industry are US - based. The others are in the UK, France, Switzerland, Germany and Japan. I think Phizer, based in NJ, is still the worlds largest phrama company.

Profit margins are higher in the phrama industry, but are eroded by lower return on assets due to shortening of patent protection, litigation and high R&D costs.

I have no doubt whatsoever that when the Republicans retake Congress in November and repeal Obamacare health insurance rates will plummet.

John

Yup! Paying lobbyists a million a day and lord knows how much in "campaign contributions" put a real dent in their bottom line so you can't really blame them for raising premiums again. I mean, otherwise the CEOs might be looking at the dire prospect of living on the south side of a billion a year.

John

Another big problem is how slowly reforms are being phased in. For consumers, that was a very expensive compromise. The lobbyists served their clients well by giving them a couple of extra years of price gouging to pad their bankroll. I know our experience has been that each year we pay more for less coverage. It would be cost prohibitive to retain the coverage that we had, so we increase co-pays or deductibles to try and maintain a reasonable monthly nut.

Regards,

D-Ray

I think you missed Rob's point. He wasn't claiming that all the major players are US based as opposed to overseas based, a difference with an ever-waning distinction, but that they all have huge "bricks and mortar" presence here in the Land of the Free Access to government-funded research.

John

Well Phizer just bought out Wyeth so that certainly gets them in the big league, but regardless the off shore companies only have a presence here for access to NIH and University research.

Big pharma will only research diseases that are very common, bigger user base, more profit. If your disease is rare you are SOL.

Shortening patent protection Hoho, can you say Prilosec and Nexium? All Astra Zenica did was tweak the makeup, change the name and voila! a whole new patent.

Then they have the unmitgated gall to state "If you can't afford the medication we may be able to help." Sure if you and your wife only have a yearly income below $35,000. Meanwhile they jack up the cost by 10-12% per year so three guesses who it is that is "helping" these poor folk with their prescription cost.:rolleyes:

This BS about the high cost of drugs here is because we are bearing the whole cost of research is just that - BS. We are paying for the advertising, executive salaries, and whatever it costs big pharma to employ all those thieves on K street.

Never heard back from Novartis, guess comparing them to leeches upset them.:p

Tell me about it, between Medicare Part B and Blue Cross Blue Shield we put out a little over $10,000 per year - as of last year. For that we get no better coverage than I got in Ontario for $54 per month. The payroll tax is about equal in both countries.

:rolleyes:why not share your wisdom on the subject?

There's no question that the federal coverage mandates in the PPACA have an impact on premiums for both individual and group policies. Estaimtes range from 0 - 2% for large group policies, to 5 - 7% for many small group policies that will require signficant adjustments in coverage.

I doubt seriouly that PPACA will be repealed if the majorities change in Congress following the November elections. At most, if the Republicans attain a majority, there might be leeway to change funding for some requirements of PPACA. However, the President still has the power of the Veto.

What would you like to know? Health care delivery, health insurance and coverage, and legislative health reform covers a lot of territory. I work in an area related to delivery of group health insurance to smal and medium - sized businesses, so it is an area of interest.

let's start slow, what do you think of the current state of healthcare?

Again - pretty wide question.

Product - overall, very good. Opportunities for improvement / efficiency can be found that do not negatively impact quality of care.
Delivery - hit and miss, cumbersome, over-regulated
Access - could be improved. Impacted by delivery.
Cost - out of control, over - regulated. The value proposition is fair, but the potential for erosion is increasing.
Regulatory enviroment - a mess. A hodge-podge of local, state and federal regulations that add costs and decrease efficiencies at every level.
Funding - a mess. Federal and state mandates and programs skew the costs and for all participants in the system. Group insurance creates a cost structure that tends to favor the largest groups, or groups that are most favorable (healthy) from an underwriting perspective. Tax treatment for health care premiums creates advantages for some and disadvantages for others, irrespective of income.

Those are very cogent argument in favor of single-payer, IMHO. With single payer, there would be no need for the regulation aspect that you hammer upon. I think the recent health care bill was little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Here's a question: Is there any nation with a system such as ours that functions well. I would have to say that the response is a double negative (no such system and if there was it would be as hosed as ours).

Ample justification for another double digit rate increase.

By the way, it's perfectly reasonable to adjust premiums upward to reflect increased/improved coverage. Heretofore, we've seen premiums rise and coverage fall.

As in defund.

Well, yes, I think we pretty much all realize that. I guess the sarcasm of my emoticon free post lost something in the reading. Rates will continue to increase when and as the industry wishes, regardless of the party in power (which will be the Democrats but with much reduced majorities).


John

All tax codes are mess. This is not unique in healthcare.

Overall I'd say your post was a bunch of Hooey.

Of course I am not in the industry. In fact once I became ill I lost all medical coverage so maybe I am unaware of the great healthcare industry.

Single - payer systems do not seem to be faring well either. In fact, many such systems, including the Canadian system, appear to be ready to explore market - based alternatives.

http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/Canada.pdf

I would also challenge you on a couple of points:

First, that single - payer is disconnected from the regulatory enviroment. Rather, single - payer is the ultimate regulation of the health care delivery system. It removes the free market almost completely from the equation, and fully regulates the delivery of care in the market: who can deliver care, under what circumstances the care can be delivered, the timing of the delivery of care, and the cost of delivery.

Second, that PPACA is "little more that re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. PPACA does little in the near term to impact the delivery of health care. It gets at cost in a rather hopeful way - that requiring individuals to purchase health care will increase improve overall funding by increasing the amount of incoming premium dollars. I'd suggest that there are still plenty of holes in the funding scenario that could likely result in further - you guessed it - regulatory intervention to plug the holes.

PPACA utlimtely could change how most poeple in this country buy health insurance. In the extreme, it could signficantly reduce the number of individuals who buy health insurance in the group market from an employer. On its face, this isn't a bad thing in and of itself. I've often said that if I were King for a day, I'd outlaw employer sponsored group health insurance. (I might even go so far as to outlaw health insurance, but that's a whole differnent thread). It creates an uneven playing field where the largest groups can puchase coverage more economically than smaller groups, and subjects small groups to more unpredictable year over year health insurance premium cost increases. PPACA doesn't necessarily solve this. It does, however, create a powerful incentive for employers - and I'd suggest in partcilular smaller employers - to get out of providing group health insurance coverage. This could result in dramatic change in how the health insurance market, and ultimately the health care delivery system, might operate.

[QUOTE=noonereal;37290]
Overall I'd say your post was a bunch of BS.
QUOTE]

Why, thank you.:confused:

the best insurance in the US today is Medicare, a single payer system.

[QUOTE=whell;37292]great reply, thanks (all thoese questions and you only decide to comment on this?:rolleyes:)

btw I meant to put Hooey, your post sounded like a bunch of hooey but I was not sure how to spell it.

It can be extremely difficult to maintain objectvity in a discussion about the broad topic of health care. It can be a very personal, emotional topic for many. However, if there is any hope at arriving at a well conceived set of solutions about the issues in the health care system, objectivity has to be the starting point for the discussion.

The "health care issue" is tremendously complex. Folks tend to lump health care delivery together with health insurance and view it all as one common problem. They are very different issues, and both would have their own unique set of solutions.

What an absolute load of crap. The Canadian system is not now, never was known as "Medicare" the authors appear to be totally confused, they must have gotten their information from Grassley and Hatch.

The Single Payer system is a health insurance system with a single insurer. Like any other insurance company they tell you what they will pay for and what they will not pay for. Even doctors in Canada get confused and at one point a group of doctors in Alberta asked the system to buy them an MRI machine. The response was that if they thought they could profitably operate such a machine they were perfectly free to buy one. Does Aetna buy MRI machines?

I could recount experiences of my family still in Canada but it probably would be a waste of time. I will simply suggest that you try the WHO site and see where Canadians stand vis-a-vis Americans. I believe you will find they live longer, have fewer strokes or heart attacks and the infant mortality rate is lower. BTW no Canadian was ever forced into bankruptcy by medical expenses.

If anyone there is considering abandoning single payer for a system like ours it would have to be that barking idiot Harper.

Dang. Grassley and Hatch are everywhere. They've even infiltrated Health Canada's web page, who seem to acknowledge the "medicare" reference. :rolleyes:

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hcs-sss/medi-assur/index-eng.php

so you have disqualified me from discussion because I am ill?

That is handy.

Was I disqualified when I paid over $15,000 a year for what amounted to catastrophic insurance for my daughter and I also?
You who has a vested interest in healthcare can discuss it objectively?

what a crock, a real Palin moment.

If you read the article on the link that I posted, you'd see that these facts are acknowledged in the article as well. It also provides reasons why this might be the case: reasons that are disconnected from the delivery of health care in Canada.

At what point did I "disqualify" you? I acknowledged that individuals bring their own experiences to the discussion which generate emotional responses. I simply suggested that emotionalism doesn't necessarily lead to constructive solutions.

Reading my posts rather than reacting to what you think my "agenda" might be could lead to a more productive discussion.

you pretty much not answered a question I have asked

you have been busy "positioning" and "framing" instead

it simply is not working

BTW, everything is as simple as it is complex

you can't hide by announcing complexity is paralysis

(well you can but it does not work)

And as one sided and distorted as that (eight year old) paper is, it doesn't say that, though Whell's original post implied that it does.

John

I've been attempting to discuss. Maybe this isn't the place for it? :confused:

You dismissed Noone's post out of hand because, being ill, he lacks "objectivity". If I were Noone, I'd be plenty pissed off. Hell, I am pissed off. You got a lotta nerve, pal.

Likewise, if you were to leave your agenda outside in the car............

John

My original post was regarding the rise of premium in the US Healthcare system. We swerved into a discussion about the Canadian system.

Whell

Discussion is good. Of course it is. I love to learn and am actually eager to hear from someone "in" healthcare as yourself.

review this thread however. You want to control the thread and direct it. That and discussion is completely different.

OK, I'm out. I was attemting to have a discussion. Lots of folks reading stuff that's just not there, and now its starting to get personal.

and I suggested (in earnest) that we take the profit out of healthcare and how did you react?

anyway I'll move on, hope you have better luck "leading" the conversation

Yeah, how in the world did that happen?

John

I'll try this one more time. After re-reading my comments, I can see how they might have been misconstrued. As I stated, my object was not to "disqualify" participation from the discussion of any poster. However, if the remarks caused offense, my apologies.

We swerved into a discussion of the Canadian system due to a remark about the virtues of single payer. Its no secret that Canada, the UK, and other systems are now struggling under the weight of the rising cost of care. These are the same dynamics that pushed health care into the national debate in this country, and ultimately produced the PPACA earlier this year. It remains to be seen if this law will have intended impact.

Posts in these forums are great vehicles to share ideas and debate their relative merits. However, participants in these forums, my self included, are not all gifted writers. Well intended posts can be mis-construed and cause offence where none is intended. This thread seems to get contentious early, as two of my posts were immediately dismissed as "BS". I brought no ill will to this discussion, but it seems as if ill will was assumed by some. I have no ax to grind with anyone here, and certainly have no ax to grind on this topic, though I have some thoughts based on my experience. I've not been posting here long enough to develop any clear idea about anyone personally. The reverse is also true, however.