Life Without Medicare - Hospitals

Take any business whether it be for profit or tax-exempt and tell them that they are going to lose half of their revenues and they are done. That's what would happen at many acute care hospitals if Medicare were to disappear.

The first thing that would happen is that hundereds of hospitals would likely close. This would take much of the excess capacity out of the system. Hospitals would then be faced with a population that would have to turn to the private sector for insurance.

Unfortunately, insurance companies are not going to be keen to pay for a population that is very likely to have a return on their investment. Therefore, the population is likely to pay for their own care.

In this circumstance hospitals are going to have to have the service of a hospital and the precision of an airline. Hospitals would have to being to provide real value to their patients. That means the feeling of wellness whether real or perceived must be provided to patients to the level of what hospitals are asking to be paid.

Come back for more on the effect of the dissolution of Medicare on hospitals.

Health Care Word of the Day - "Indication Creep"

Indication creep is defined as follows:

"An indication is a diagnosis of a disease, for which you have some treatment. So the indication here would be heart attack, or risk of heart attack. Statin studies have looked at people who are at very high risk of having another heart attack. ... You study these people and you find you can really reduce their risk of heart attack. OK, it's probably a good idea to prescribe these drugs to people who have heart attacks.

Then what happens is the manufacturer seeks to expand its market, and so the indication creeps outward, from people who have clearly benefited to more and more people for whom the evidence is much more shaky. We really don't have the evidence to say that giving statins to people who've never had a heart attack is going to reduce the risk of a heart attack. But they're given these drugs anyway because doctors think it's true and patients think it's true."

Interesting article that is flies in the face of consumer-directed healthcare.