Healthcare costs are rising 3 times as fast as inflation. But would any of the solutions pass the “smell test” with voters?

Photo above - First officer Ripley and Captain Dallas express surprise that their teammate was NOT cured of his alien infection . . .

America spends $4.5 trillion on health care each year. And it’s going up faster than eggs, butter, EV cars, and electricity. Make it stop! People are screaming.

$4.5 trillion is $13,000 per man, woman, child and “prefer not to say” living in America. If you didn’t pay that much last year, it’s because you’re not dying yet. In the last year of your life medical bills will amount to 30-50% of your entire lifetime medical costs. For that one year. It will be at the low end of the range (30%) if we’re having a pandemic, and sick people are triaged or being sent home. It will be higher if your hospital has empty beds. The hospital business model is similar to hotels. Fill every bed, and charge whatever the market will bear.

Welcome to the land of $30,000 appendectomies.

I have good news and bad news. The link below identifies a bunch of things we can do to be “more like Europe” (or Cuba, or China, or Russia). The bad news? You probably wouldn’t vote for most of these things, if a referendum were held. Here’s a sample:

1 – End semiprivate and private rooms in hospitals. This means putting sick people in a ward with 10 or 20 other sick people. Like the barracks on “Gomer Pyle, USMC”. That may not bother you if it’s your 92 year old grandmother taking a walk over the rainbow bridge. But imagine if it’s your 5-year-old daughter with appendicitis.

2 – Reduce the number nurses and doctors. Well, you need less of them if you cluster all the sick people in a barracks, don't you?

3 – Pay those doctors and nurses less. A LOT less. Like the UK, where mid career doctors are paid about the same as public school teachers. NHS doctors periodically go on strike for a decent wage. The UK government reminds them that low wages were part of the deal when they got a free medical degree.

4 – Price controls. Limit what a hospital, or doctor can charge. This is like putting a $25,000 price cap on new cars sold in America. Yeah, some of the cars could be scary-bad, but with the savings you could afford bus fare.

5 – Wait for some other nation to develop the next antibiotic or pandemic vaccine. It doesn’t always have to be America. If you’re willing to wait long enough, someone else will eventually get it right.

6 – Cut the administrative costs. Okay, this one DOES sound like a winner. Terminate most of the Insurance company adminatrators and replace them with . . . government specialists. Something like Social Security benefits administrators (GS 9's). They will be cheaper than insurance company people. Or, we could delegate everything to AI, and allow IT to approve or deny operations, medicines, and end of life care. Your chance of survival is “this percentage”, and AI decides that your operation and prescription are not approved. Especially if you're 92.

The USA Today link goes into detail about how everyone is overpaid, and there are too many people, and how we should just embrace government price controls.

And they may be right. But before I sign up for all that, maybe I’d like to see an analysis of things like : stopping the Fentanyl crisis; treating alcoholism. Taking drivers permits away permanently from repeat DUI offenders. Licensing and insuring firearms in a manner similar to automobiles. Risk based premiums for things like tanning salons, tobacco use and obesity.

We’re probably not going to be allowed to have a referendum on any of THAT stuff either. Just look at how long a bipartisan congress has played politics with gun control, instead of drafting and putting a constitutional amendment on the table.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Seven reasons why Americans pay more for health care than any other nation