Thursday, March 15, 2007
Consumerism is in Our Future
Three laissez faire-loving authors offer three books with a positive forecast for the future of health care in America: less government control and more individual autonomy.The Business of Health: The Role of Competition, Markets, and Regulation, Robert J. Ohsfeldt and John E. Schneider, (AEI Press 2006)
The Cure: How Capitalism can Save American Health Care, David Gratzer, (Encounter Books 2006)
The New Health Insurance Solution: How to Get Cheaper, Better Coverage Without a Traditional Employer Plan, Paul Zane Pilzer, (John and Wiley Sons Inc. 2005)
In The Business of Health, authors Robert J. Ohsfeldt and John E. Schneider of the American Enterprise Institute and the University of Iowa College of Public Health provide technical analysis on the benefits of profit-seeking in health care.
The authors begin by noting the complexity of cited reports about U.S. health care performance on an international scale, and find that broad, population-health metrics may overlook differences in health-systems across countries. Such measurements may also capture population characteristics that have nothing to do with health systems. For example, injury and homicide cause a significantly higher mortality rate in the U.S., but you hear less often that the U.S. ranks very high in patient survival rates due to early detection of disease and post-diagnosis management.
Ohsfeldt and Schneider write that many comparisons of the U.S. health-care system to those of other countries are founded on misunderstood international standards; their misuse by supporters of a centralized government system threatens to stifle innovation and research in the U.S. The authors conclude that health policies intended to lessen the adverse effects of competition should be measured against the loss resulting from restrictions on competition.
Those looking for a lighter read will find The Cure full of facts, entertaining anecdotal references, history, and even a little philosophy. Author David Gratzer, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is also a physician who has practiced in both Canada and the United States.
Gratzer remarks on America’s exceptional capacity to innovate in the medical arena, but our antiquated method of delivery. Citing Milton Friedman, he writes that health care should be cheaper as it evolves and more Americans use it, like other sectors of the economy that have achieved economies of scale.
Our health-care delivery system, Gratzer explains, has sprouted from a few bad seeds: for example, employer-sponsored care, which began in the 1940s, has distorted the true cost of health care by giving beneficiaries excessive benefits, tax free. Employees pay increasingly less out-of-pocket for their own health care as a result. The average out-of-pocket expense for health care in 1962 was 46 cents of every dollar; today it is around 14 cents.
Gratzer supports President Bush’s recent health care tax reform and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), essential steps to break America from dependency on employer-provided health care.
Finally, Paul Zane Pilzer, economist, entrepreneur, and professor, wrote The New Health Insurance Solution, which amounts to health insurance 101; how to find and keep portable health insurance, and how to save money doing it
Pilzer writes that Americans are wasting their money enrolling in employer-sponsored plans. Especially if you’re healthy, he says, you should choose individual or family high-deductible insurance with an HSA. Employer-sponsored health care only means we may have less choice of providers, no protection if we lose our jobs, and financial risk even when we keep our jobs. Pilzer also provides an appendix with a state-by-state guide to individual and family health insurance premiums.
He helps readers understand the currently convoluted system, including employer plans, Medicaid, health insurance laws and loopholes, and a series of FAQs: What if you think you can’t afford health insurance? What if you just transferred jobs? What if you own a small business?
All authors ultimately provide substantive evidence supporting the rising trend of consumer directed health care (CDHC). All agree that pro-consumer policy recommendations would allow patients to grow into savvy clients and savers, that consumers should be able to buy insurance plans across state lines, and benefit from tax deductible health-insurance premiums. Those bothered by the current debate can take heart. More choice, cost effectiveness, and quality are in our future with consumer-directed health care.
- posted by Diana Ernst
- 1:01 pm
- 0 comment
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