Healthcare reform - where the US squanders its dollars

Did I say there was a lot going on?

Here is a look at regional healthcare - a comparison of major centers around the country, in a recent article in Time by Michael Grunwald.

The title is:

More Data + Less Care = Lower Cost + Better Health

It includes a comparison of major hospitals around the country, and highlights tremendous differences in costs, quantity, quality and outcomes.

The Mayo Clinic has the lowest costs overall, and who would doubt the quality of the care the Mayo system provides? On the one hand, why is Mayo so much less costly than other centers? On the other, Mayo loses almost 50% on the dollar of the care it provides for Medicare services. This gives you some idea how far from sustainability healthcare in the US is as presently funded.

Then there is the practice of charging medical insurers more to subsidize the care provided at a loss. All hospitals do this, and it represents a "stealth tax". Who bears the brunt of this "tax"? Businesses do, and the employees who are nowing picking up more of their own premium costs as businesses pull back.

Critics of healthcare reform say the government should stay out of healthcare. Too late, really, and also not very fair. If you consider that the federal goverment already funds medicare, medicaid and the VA, nearly half the country is already on the government tab. It seems unfair to have the government responsible for one half, and not the other, especially when the insured segment is subject to that stealth tax. That stealth tax not only provides for the losses due to underpayment by medicare, but it covers the care of the uninsured across the system.

In one respect, Healthcare reform is not about raising taxes, but shifting from a system of "secret taxes" to one in which there is fair coverage and fuller transparency. A system that is fairer to all citizens, and where dollars are spent on healthcare, not insurance administration, a large part of which is geared to refusing payment for care already provided.