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- Newsgroups: sci.econ
- Path: sparky!uunet!ftpbox!mothost!lmpsbbs!markr
- From: markr@mot.com (Mark)
- Subject: Re: Deficit - can it be corrected?
- Reply-To: markr@mcil.comm.mot.com
- Organization: MCIL
- Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 10:22:19 GMT
- Message-ID: <1992Oct8.102219.1855@lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com>
- References: <1992Oct02.141437.160192@watson.ibm.com> <1992Oct5.085151.11751@lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com> <92279.092606DGS4@psuvm.psu.edu>
- Sender: news@lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com (Net News)
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- Lines: 53
-
- In article <92279.092606DGS4@psuvm.psu.edu> <DGS4@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
- >In article <1992Oct5.085151.11751@lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com>, markr@mot.com (Mark)
- >says:
- >>
- >>In article <1992Oct02.141437.160192@watson.ibm.com> platt@watson.ibm.com l
- >>(Danie
- >>E. Platt) writes:
- >>> . . . .
- >>>If you go to a hospital, it becomes obvious why costs are so high. There
- >>>is no incentive to keep costs down. People can go get health care at any
- >>>institution regardless of the rates charged. Most people never really
- >>>have to look at their bills; that's all handled for them by the hospital,
- >>>who bills the insurance companies directly. Medical costs are hard to
- >>>control because there is effectively no market.
- >>
- >>This one could be tackled this way : Allow only 90% of medical costs to be
- >>insured, while 10% MUST be paid by the patient. Of course, with a cap
- >>of, say 20%, of ones income, so as not to bankrupt the patient, but to make
- >>it painful enough that the patient will be inclined to seek out less expensive
- >>medical care.
- >
- >This describes quite well the system we already have, except for the income
- >cap. The typical American worker with a family paid $720 towards his/her
- >health insurance premiums in 1988. Twenty-three percent had a deductible
- >of $200 or more; 76% had a deductible of $100 or more. Only 5% had no
- >deductible. 86% had coinsurance of 20%, 5% had 15 percent, 6% had
- >coinsurance of 10%. The only difference is that out-of-pcoket limits were
- >not adjusted for income. 49% had a maximum OOP expenses of $4,000 ore more;
- >81% had a maximum OOP expenses of 2,000 ore more.
-
- I would eliminate deductibles completely. Deductibles create a situation
- where the patient pays a smaller percentage of costs as the patients costs
- go up. I would prefer that the patient's percentage of costs remain the
- same until a very high limit. (i.e. 20% of the patients income)
-
- This would also be somewhat fairer.
-
- >The system of cost-sharing you describe has already been set up. As
- >several economic studies show, most notably the Rand HIE, further cost
- >sharing beyond this level will have minimal impact of health expenditures.
-
- The current system of cost-sharing is NOT a complete system of cost sharing, there
- are all sorts of exceptions. Examples include, people who have seperate
- hospital and seperate medical plans (where the hospital plan may pay 95% with
- the other 5% covered under OCC - other covered charges of the medical plan),
- people with seperate drug plans, HMO membership where the patient pays only
- $2 - $5 per visit and $2 - $5 per prescription, etc...
-
- There are also people who are covered under more than one plan and can
- split the expenses between plans.
-
- Mark
-
-