The ACA will destroy American Healthcare as we know it. Yes, the horse is out of the barn.  The system in US is now designed to fail. Comical Crippen will worry about propofol or some other intervention turf war. It is all over.  The government is here and they are here to help :-(.

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This is political in nature and ordinarily, I would scotch it immediately, but: a) there is some LIMITED medical value in clarifying some of it and, b) I can’t let you get away with it as a stand alone without an alternative view. This subject is GUARANTEED to start a prolonged argument, so I will use my prerogative as the Boss to rejoin it with a few alternative comments, then bring it to a screeching halt when the arguments start, and they will.  If you like to argue about politics, join med-events where blood runs freely.

In 1965, the medical establishment, including the AMA and my father the surgeon loudly exclaimed that Medicare and Medicaid would “destroy American health care as we know it”. In fact, those services made my father’s generation of physicians rich and created the Medical-Industrial Complex which has now grown to the point where it threatens to “destroy American health care as we know it” by it’s sheer volume and weight. The Affordable Health Care Act of 2008, is not needed to hasten that eventuality.

The bill for a typical 6-day hospital stay for childbirth in 1951 was $85—well within the out of pocket range of most families. A 6-day hospitalization for cardiac workup at a large urban hospital in 2010 has recently been calculated to be $19,254; the facility lost $2,695 of that amount after reimbursement. This cost situation arose in part because physicians in such a system have little motivation to reduce costs, given that the care is paid for by a third party relatively unable to process the value of need versus desire. Similarly, consumers of health care are not the purchasers thereof and so have little motivation to assess cost versus value. More is always better, especially when it is free.

Virtually every other civilized country in the global village has evolved to lowest common denominator of health care for ALL of their citizens, and that is single payer, government sponsored health care indemnification. the price paid for that is enforced prioritization of entry and “saying no” to expensive treatment that has a dismal benefit at great cost. It isn’t perfect, but in the end, everyone is covered and it’s more or less affordable. America runs on a consumer satisfaction mode, a situate that everyone agrees is unsustainable even if it were not for the global recession of 2008.

In 2009, the USA spent (all told) twenty five trillion dollars on health care but only indemnified about 40% of it’s population (some are underinsured). that’s US$8,000 per person, 17.3% of the GDP and increasing about 6% annually. The USA ranks below Portugal in preventable mortality. California increased it’s cost of health insurance 20% this year and there is no end in sight. As the price of health care goes up, fewer businesses can afford health care for their employees. 62% of all personal bankruptcies involve medical bills in 2010.

So, the AHCA of 2008 is not anywhere on this screen. We’re on our way to insolvency all by ourselves right now, and we’re still only covering a small portion of our population doing it, expensively and inefficiently. The AHCA of 2008 purports rectify three glaring omissions we don’t have now. It effectively ends insurance payment discrimination, adds an estimated 31 million needy potential patients to an already overloaded system and it’s portable. These are all GOOD things, and I might add GOOD things that most if not all of the other civilized countries in the global village provide for their citizens.

The argument against the AHCA of 2008 is twofold: a) Straight up political partisanship. ANYTHING that comes out of this sitting President is spawn of the devil, and: b) It will be expensive. However, complaining that the AHCA is going to break the bank implies that the bank would remain solvent without it. Nothing could be further than the truth. The bank is hemorrhaging right out into the street and is reliably headed for insolvency all on it’s own. The worst that can be said about the AHCA is it will hasten the process.

Maybe. So if you ignore the political aspects, which you definitely should, what remains is how to finance it. Of course the best way is to mandate everyone buy into it to keep the cost of participating down. If anyone is allowed to opt out, our culture mandates we still have to treat them anyway. So if opt-out is allowed, it will collapse instantly. We’ll see how that works out. Otherwise, there is an other reality that must be faced. there is NO possibility of a system that creates demand and then supplies it in a customer satisfaction mode can remain solvent. So, if the whole system is swirling around the bowl, which it is, there are several options available, two of which are painful prescriptions for providers.

1. Allocate resources toward health care and away from other previous priorities such as entitlement programs, military security, and bureaucratic priorities.

2. Pay providers less for the same (or increased) workload.

3. Reorganize health care spending so that more money is spent on some services and less or nothing is spent on others; essentially, say no more often. History suggests that it is unlikely any modern society can or will decrease support of entitlements such as social welfare, unemployment insurance, social security benefits, or retirement benefits that citizens depend on and have paid into during their working careers. Cutting military security funding is equally unlikely. Most if not all national budgets include little else that can be reallocated in any meaningful amount. That leaves options 2 and 3. It is virtually certain that providers will have to reorganize their priorities one way or the other, and accept less remuneration in the process.

So denigrating the AHCA because it will break the bank is (I think) a “straw man” argument. We’re pointing our finger at something that hasn’t even happened yet as we descend into the depths. We can continue on the path we’re on into insolvency while indemnifying only a portion of our patients at huge expense and great inefficiency, or we can continue toward insolvency indemnifying 96% of our patients more efficiently avoiding personal bankruptcies, asking our providers to work harder for less pay. Then we can just pay for it (in taxes) and get over it.

If we decide not to just pay for it and get over it, we’re going to crash, and when we do, we’ll discover the reason why most of the other civilized countries of the global village have evolved to single payer system, prioritization, saying no and standing in line. BTW, the government is here and it’s helping as MOST health care in this country is government funded. All care for Washington politicians, military, VA system, Medicare, Medicaid.

Sorry about typos and misspellings. I type once and I never proofread.