Healthcare Economics: Why This Stuff Doesn ’ t Actually Work The Way You Think It Does

By JOE FLOWER

This is a letter I sent to Gary Cohn, appointed by President Trump to head the National Economic Council and, among other things, come up with a plan for reforming healthcare. Formerly president of Goldman Sachs, Cohn may be a wizard at finance, but healthcare economics are wildly different and famously opaque. So I thought I would help him out.]
Subject: A brief on healthcare economics. (8 minutes)
 o Why healthcare economics are different.
 o Why the ACA is failing.
 o What would work.
Who I am (credentials): Independent healthcare author and analyst since Jimmy Carter’s administration. Speaker, consultant across the industry at all levels, including insurers, hospitals, device manufacturers, employers, Veterans, pharma, World Health Organization, Department of Defense. Look me up: ImagineWhatIf.com. Books on Amazon.

Core problem: The core problem in healthcare reform is the actual cost of medical care.
o Healthcare in the U.S. by any measure costs about twice what it should.
o Medical prices are completely disconnected from the cost of production.
o Few medical providers even know the true cost of ownership of their products.
o By a number of analyses at least one third of that (well over $1 trillion this year) is waste, paying for things that we don’t need and that don’t help.
o Solving just the federal part of this would completely wipe out the deficit.
Trying to “take care of everybody” will always be impossible politically a...

Source: The Health Care Blog - March 10, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs