tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3828848031777476936.post1349215391797599435..comments2023-11-05T04:47:21.099-08:00Comments on What's Wrong With American Health Care Today: Fine Tooth Analysis of the Healthcare BillDr. John Vigil, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18219062067806732951noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3828848031777476936.post-60878175885516767162010-03-29T14:15:24.546-07:002010-03-29T14:15:24.546-07:00STFU Memo,
Thank you very much for your thoughtfu...STFU Memo,<br /><br />Thank you very much for your thoughtful comments. I have posted an article from Medicine & Opera regarding costs of medical care for 2007. I have also researched costs from the CBO and have learned that the real rate of increase in medical costs is about 5% per year.<br /><br />If we apply that rate of increase to the figures for 2007, then the costs for 2010 (before Obamacare) will be about 3.05 trillion. <br /><br />Five billion is 0nly 0.16% of 3.05 trillion dollars. If we take all the uninsured--which estimates range from 20-40 million--and for the sake of argument, pick 30 million, that accounts for about 14% of the population. If 86% of the population is "spending" 3 trillion dollars a year for healthcare, then 14% should spend about 430 billion dollars per year. Five billion is only 1.1% percent of the 430 billion dollars needed to provide healthcare to 30 million more insured. which means that 98.9% will come from collected premiums or about $14,000/person ($1166/month in premiums). <br /><br />But--since this is supposed to be an affordable alternative for the uninsured, there are only two alternatives:<br /><br />The rest of us subsidize the care above and beyond the pittance of $5 billion and whatever the government charged for premiums (which I'm sure will not be $1166/month) or the Secretary of Health and Human Services rations care and/or denies coverage.<br /><br />The second problem is that in the above analysis, I have made the assumption that those people will require the same amount of care as the "average" patient; however, we must remember that this group represents a "high-risk pool" with presumably pre-existing conditions and one can assume that their care will be somewhat above the "average"!<br /><br />Another interesting finding is that the same CBO figures estimate that the US currently pays about $7400 per year for health care per American. If that is true, then in the above analysis, we and/or the patients will be paying twice as much for their care from the government as we should be!<br /><br />If we apply that same $7400/person to the 30 million uninsured, we see that we would still need at least $222 trillion dollars to care for them, which again, is far more than the 5 billion appropriated by our generous congress!Dr. John Vigil, MDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18219062067806732951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3828848031777476936.post-59511657297931890832010-03-29T12:52:43.714-07:002010-03-29T12:52:43.714-07:00I appreciate the hard work and thoughtfulness you&...I appreciate the hard work and thoughtfulness you're exercising in this endeavor. I think it would be especially helpful if you included some statistics in your critique.<br />I know it will require much addition effort but without facts you only contribute to the chorus of opinion, viz. 'the 5 billion dollar pool which will be burned through very quickly.'<br />For my part I'll be headed over to the CBO to see if I can find some figures on this :)Ikesmithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10354623995696442520noreply@blogger.com