Someone Else "Get's It"

Every once in a while a new reader will wander by and share their thoughts in the comment section.

Steve Trinward is one of those.

Steve offered these words on our assessment in Going Dutch.

A large part of why healthcare costs so much is the "employee benefit model" by which so much of it has been insulated from any semblance of "free market pricing" for services. When: (a) there's a huge number of people for whom "wellness" is no longer their direct concern (because "if I get sick, I'm covered at my job!"); (b) that "coverage" is isolated from both the provider (MD, hospital, etc.) and the patient, in terms of cost of actual services, or economies in what superfluous high-dollar testing and examination may be undertaken (in the name of avoiding a 'malpractice" suit?); (c) hospitals and other providers are almost encouraged to inflate "list prices" for services (to boost Medicare reimbursement, even though the actual charges to insurance companies are well below those levels); and (d) politicians obscure the real problems by blaming anyone seeking to shift the parameters ... the results are pretty obvious.

Moving from employer-based to individual-linked "coverage," and away from such "insured" status for anything but major "catastrophic" issues (Since we don't insure cars for oil-changes, we should consider annual physicals and periodic basic screenings as similar "maintenance costs"), ... while seeking to encourage "wellness" and prevention as a primary focus (one for which we are willing to pay reasonable amounts to preclude the need for later aftercare and nursing-home treatment?)

this is the direction we need to move in, if we are to turn the tide of "healthcare" before it swallows us all.

We enjoyed his comments so much, we asked if we could link to his blogpost on this topic.

Steve graciously agreed.

You can see his thoughts on this by going here.

Thanks, Steve, for allowing us to share your insight with our readers.