A tiny number

[womzilla]

Avedon linked to an article at the Financial Times about the possible savings if the US switched to a "single-payer" health insurance system.

A single-payer system--which is similar to what Canada has--means that all health insurance is provided by a single entity, in this case the government. The current system in the US, where everyone provides for their own health insurance, is a bureaucratic nightmare, because medical care providers have to submit reimbursement claims to hundreds of different organizations each of which has its own way of doing things. Under a single-payer system, there's one set of forms for all people. (Think of how time-consuming it is to file your taxes. Maybe it's managable; maybe it's tough. Now imagine that you have to file a different tax form for every single transaction you make in your life. That's what the current US health-care system is like for the care providers.)

The FT refers to an upcoming article in the New England Journal of Medicine that estimates that the US could save $200 BILLION per year by switching to a single-payer system. That's about 20% of the total cost of all health care in the US, and about 2% of the GDP of the United States. That's appalling.

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That ain't the half of it...

[jayspec.livejournal.com]

Here at the hospital, one of the big systems I manage, IDX, has an entire module dedicated to determining if the charges that a doctor has entered will pass the muster of the various health insurance companies. Then, then insurance companies send us the money for the services that we've rendered in what is possibly the most complicated way possible, which actually involves them sending it to us in on phone-book sized listings of payments, accompanied by a single phat check. We actually employ teams of people to enter this information back into IDX and our various other financial databases.

Yes, they could send it digitally. No, they don't. They will once that part of HIPAA is enforced, but, of course, enforcement of the part of HIPAA that will actually make life easier for health care providers has been pushed back.

Can we please, please have socialized medicine? I'm sick of my friends either not going to doctors, or having their savings wiped out by necessary medical procedures. Yes, I say this even though it would likely mean my unemployment. I'll find another job, but if you don't have your health...