In article , Pan Ohco
wrote:
On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 17:59:18 GMT, (Werner J.
Severin) wrote:
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1623
*
Public Citizen * Physicians for a National Health Program*
Jan. 14, 2004
Study Shows National Health Insurance Could Save $286 Billion on Health
Care Paperwork:
Authors Say Medicare Drug Bill Will Increase Bureaucratic Costs, Reward
Insurers and the AARP
A study by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Public Citizen to be
published in Fridayıs International Journal of Health Services finds that
health care bureaucracy last year cost the United States $399.4 billion.
The study estimates that national health insurance (NHI) could save at
least $286 billion annually on paperwork, enough to cover all of the
uninsured and to provide full prescription drug coverage for everyone in
the United States.
You actually expect the government to have less bureaucratic cost?
Pan Ohco
No one said "bureaucratic" cost. They said "paperwork," or perhaps
"administrative" cost.
Administrative cost in the current system involves separate negotiation
between each hospital and each insurance company. Typically, that means
pricing at least 400 line items (i.e., CPT (Current Procedural Terms)
codes plus drug codes). Individual clinicians usually refuse to
negotiate that many times, so they won't take many insurance plans.
Also in this are some very hefty profit numbers. Healthcare executives
do very, very well in the annual executive compensation surveys.
The current system also doesn't do well with the cost, in some cases
mandated (e.g., by the federal EMTALA laws that require emergency rooms
to take patients), of uninsured patients. That cost gets shifted to the
insured and self-pay.