Someone pointed out to me that the healthcare legislation before congress will create a windfall for the health insurance industry. The individual went on to say that this legislation, which is health insurance reform and not healthcare reform legislation, will guarantee the health insurance industry 30 million new customers.
As I thought about this, it occurred to me that this legislation also gives the insurance industry an unofficial carte blanche to reduce reimbursement to providers for healthcare services.
The biggest boon to the insurance industry, however, is that this new legislation further obscures the truth that the insurance industry is the problem with the American healthcare system and not the solution.
While true healthcare reform advocates will continue to advocate, the response they will get from legislators is that “we have done our job, we have fixed the problem!”
Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. We can hope, of course, that this new legislation will, indeed, increase access to healthcare, thus reducing the number of Americans who are unable to get access to healthcare.
What is significant, however, is what the legislation does not do. It does not change the fundamental rules of the game which are driven by the fee-for-service (FFS) process. It is this fee-for-service process that drives the cost of healthcare ever higher, precluding the influence of free market forces on healthcare prices. It is the FFS model that creates disincentives for preventive care and patient education about healthy lifestyles. It is the FFS model that creates an environment, unlike what we find in private industry, in which new technology increases rather than reduces costs and thus does not increase overall value.
It may well turn out, for reasons that have nothing to do with the fears of American conservatives, that this legislation will set the American healthcare reform movement back for at least another quarter of a century.
The fourth article in our series about our uniquely American healthcare solution will be posted on or about January 11th. It will discuss the fee-for-service/prepaid care dichotomy.
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