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Thursday, March 29, 2007
Caution on Health Care Costs?
Tom Paine has an odd post up about health care costs. The argument, I think, is that we need to be careful containing health care costs because the industry generates many jobs, and health care costs are high, generally, because of demand.
The predatory lending industry provides jobs, too. It's costs are quite high, yet there is demand for its products. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't cut those costs, right?
This passage bugged me, too:
The problem for consumers was that the industry kept growing, adding layers of administration, adding job classifications and increasingly expensive equipment and treatments. In its success, health care extended life expectancy, but that increased lifespan also added hugely to medical costs: half the health care dollars an individual expends occur in the last six months of his or her life—much of that life artificially maintained.
You'd think these people would be paying for effective procedures that extend life, but do they? What evidence does the author have that they do?
It seems quite possible to me that health care at this stage could be remarkably ineffective. People don't know what they're paying for, and health care providers have an incentive to offer ineffective products and procedures if they're paid to do it. In fact, that's what health care researchers often say happens.
Posted by Matt Lewis
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