Thursday, December 20, 2007

Complexity of Current Health Care Financing -- Unimagineable

This morning I added the following list to "Single-Payer: Comparison to the Current System" under "Complex with Many Costs":
  • The medical component of:
    • Workers compensation programs
    • Medical malpractice premiums
    • Auto insurance
And I had thought the previous list was already long about where our tax dollars and out-of-pocket dollars are going for health care. It is truly unimagineable, a word not in the dictionary, but it should be!
Worker compensation programs are, of course, part of the complexity of covering health care, since that is a primary purpose of those programs.

Some people cry out about malpractice premiums. National health insurance automatically eliminates a major portion of the number of dollars for a possible lawsuit claim. Since health care for life is automatically provided, one cannot sue for "health care for the rest of the life of the injured party."

Inputs from others have been helpful. Yesterday as I was spreading the word, someone
strongly suggested that I look on my automobile insurance bill for the words "coordinated medical benefits" for a sizeable portion of my insurance bill. (He was correct!) He also pointed out that this additional health insurance will not likely pay anything if I have to go to the hospital due to an automobile accident. Why? Because this is secondary, not primary, health insurance. Not only that, some people might not even think to submit their health care bills to the automobile insurance company.

I tried a few years ago to document on a flow chart where all the money flows among the private health insurance companies and government programs. I didn't get very far; it was overwhelming. We need to move from complex to simple for the financing of health care!

Here is the link to the above web page.