Comments on: Why Bundling Payments Won’t Reduce Costs – Part 1

By: Raj

Raj — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 03:08:32 +0000

Been driving the same first car I bought 8 years ago !

By: WhiteCoat

WhiteCoat — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:48:43 +0000

Feel like I’m sitting in Cheers downing a beer right now, I look over at the door and …
Wanna do some guest posts?
E-mail me.

By: Guiac

Guiac — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:35:50 +0000

Only the administrators have reserved spaces at our hospital.

By: DefendUSA

DefendUSA — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:01:10 +0000

Clearly “anon’ doesn’t have a clue. My father in law is a retired GP who now oversees an oncology practice for something to do at age 74. He drove his cars until they ran no more. What a doctor makes is relative to his life and nobody else’s business. My brother in law is a neurosurgeon and drove a corolla for 14 years. When he finally finished school he drove a Honda and passed it on to a family memeber. He now at age 39 drives a BMW.
As the British might say, just bugger off, Anon.

By: doc99

doc99 — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:16:23 +0000

I drive a ten yr old PT Cruiser … I must have missed out.

By: joe

joe — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 17:49:08 +0000

Agreed justadoc.

The only way money will be saved is by:

A: Rationing care like the europeans do. I am not saying this as a negative just a fact. European countries usually ration rationally with a societal risk/benefit argument. I am not saying it is the way we should go, but we should as a society discuss it (without lightweights in designer glasses using the “death panel argument”). Of course that actually demands our politicians act like adults and leaders. Something that is sorely lacking from both parties today. My recommendation is to vote against the incumbant next fall no matterthe party. They will only listen if you kick out the deadwood and the ideologues from washington.

B: High-deductable insurance. Expecting insurance to pay a PCP visit is like expecting your car insurance to pick up oil changes and tune-ups. IF that is going to continue, it is going to be expensive. Insurance companies have 25-33% overhead. An obvious cheaper solution is to pay for your own PCP visits and save insurance for expensive and family destroying events. Of course that makes sense which is why it will not happen largescale.

By: joe

joe — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 17:35:30 +0000

Anon:
I drive a 13 yo chevy. But do keep the ignorant preconceptions coming. You sound more like a dolt by the word. You know that medicare payments have up around 1.5% in the last 10 years in absolute terms? But its the “rich” doctors fault. Just how much do you think costs have gone up? How much has your salary gone up? Jeez, fire a neuron.

By: JustADoc

JustADoc — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 01:44:07 +0000

I think health insurance with a $3000 deductible is pretty good if the premium is like $100-$200 month(not employee’s portion, the actual entire premium). Patient has some incentive to not be stupid with his requests and use of blatantly unneeded care(1 day of sniffles without fever in otherwise healthy adult) but won’t be bankrupted by any significant illness/injury.

$3000 sounds like a lot but it is only $250/month and you pay a lot more than that now(And if your employer pays it that means you pay a significant portion of it in salary you didn’t get).
And that $250/month is not lost if not used like your premium now is.

By: MV

MV — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 19:10:26 +0000

You missed on a couple of points.

First, a health care plan with a $3000 deductible cnanot be considered good in any sense of the word. But it also means that money is being given to an insurance company rather than being spent on care just in case.

Second, you miss the time aspect. Even when I had good health care (and apparently I still do according to your definition), I could not have high utilization because it required time and effort. You have to take off work to get in to an appointment. This is a significant barrier to access.

Put simply, I often avoid or delay needed or useful care because of scheduling issues. This is not a shortage issue. Doctors would be happy to see me but they like to work the same hours I do.

By: JustADoc

JustADoc — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 18:59:23 +0000

I drive a 9 year old truck that I bought used when it was 2 years old.
My practice partners drive a 12 year old minivan, a mid-2000s ford truck,a lexus(yeah, there is one), a toyota corolla, a Ford 250, and some others that I cannot recall. Only one of us drive anything that could remotely be considered ‘luxury’.