Health care cost reform, another step…

We need more health care reform so that everyone gets health care that's needed, and everyone pays for health care. That's the "individual mandate," we need it because no one should get health care free. And, where it exists, we need to fix egregiously excessive compensation to drug makers and health care providers.

I'm not simply, blindly saying "hospitals and doctors and drug makers charge too much." That brush is way too broad, too incendiary.

But, for instance, compared to other rich countries, we're not getting enough for what we're paying when we schedule an office visit with a doctor.

Here's an interesting explanation (Feb. 27) from Matthew Yglesias on Slate.com:

"The last time the OECD looked at this (2008 data, PDF), they found that, adjusted for local purchasing power, America has the highest-paid general practitioners in the world. And our specialists make more than specialists in every other country except the Netherlands. What’s even more striking, as the Washington Post’s Sarah Kliff observed last week, these highly paid doctors don’t buy us more doctors’ visits. Canada has about 25 percent more doctors’ consultations per capita than we do, and the average rich country has 50 percent more. This doctor compensation gap is hardly the only issue in overpriced American health care—overpriced medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, prescription drugs, and administrative overhead are all problems—but it’s a huge deal."

  

We need to fix our health care system, one step at a time, and there are so many places to start the work….

Health care costs, a time bomb?

Health care reform, the ups and downs...