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What is the future of healthcare? How can it become health care vs sickness treatment? What role do technology and innovation play?
Healthcare costs are rising, the population is aging and medical needs are greater than ever. How can patients receive better quality care at an affordable price? How can we leverage technology to provide better and more affordable healthcare around the world?
Topics:
Healthcare e-health innovation medicine
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Showing single comment thread. View the full conversation.
Tony Gruber
My problem with the US medical care debate is the automatic assumption that Health Insurance should be part of the solution. Insurance is traditionally purchased to protect yourself against something that you don't want to happen. It can't work, economically, when the general population uses insurance to pay for events that are certain to happen, or that you hope will happen.
IE:
1. Treatment of chronic illness. You know you need the treatment, so it will cost more overall to indirectly pay for it via Insurance.
2. Health care. Again; you want to be healthy, so paying an insurance policy to pay for your efforts to remain healthy is more expensive than paying it yourself.
3. Sickness treatment. This is the only aspect of Medical care that works as an insurable event. You don't want to get sick, so you don't want to use your health insurance policy for this. Therefore; this represents an economically insurable risk. But sickness treatment is only 1 of 3 broad categories within the Medical care arena that are economically insurable.
These aren't the only problems with using insurance to pay for Medical care, but I hope they illustrate the problem. ?
Gregory Klopper
Also we have to consider the economic value of stability. Paying more is not always bad. You don't just pay tfor treatment, you pay for the safety net that WHILE you're getting your treatment, chronic or not, any sudden hikes in costs or changes in standard of care, or acute incidents, and incedental trauma will not take unexpected $20,000 out of your pocket, derailing your entire financial life (thinking of average americans here).
I'm not saying insurance today isn't flawed throughout. I am FAR FROM defending today's model, but it's not just something that you deprioritize or think of ways to get rid of. I think it's something which needs re-design, but should always be a part of the system when considering the holistic "health CARE", not just incedental medical treatments. And it should reward behaviors such as healthy diets, supplementation, and exercise or active lifestyle, which should become increasingly easy in the world of Big Data.
julie hagigeorges
Tony Gruber
I'm suggesting we insure the 'insurable' portions of health care, and recognize that some health care costs are not 'insurable'. Here's an illustration:
You insure a house against catastrophic damage (something that you hope will never happen), but you don't insure the house against regular maintenance, because that would bring an additional cost into the equation - the cost of the insurance company itself. Hiring an insurance company to pay for your yard work and house maintenance would be much more expensive that paying for it yourself, right? That is also true for routine medical visits and treatment of chronic illness.
It's another matter entirely to say "I want a collective group to subsidize my chronic health issues and routine office visits". This is a valid concern for the poor, but this issue should be treated as another matter entirely.
If someone wants/or needs that kind of financial help, it's less expensive in the long run to treat that as the separate issue that it truly is.
Insurance is a very expensive way to pay for routine expenses, and that's a big reason health costs are increasing rapidly.
Edgar Munoz
Drew Bixby
To me, I CHOSE to buy insurance to mitigate the risk. I could take the same amount of money and save it in the event of some catastrophe, but I make a CHOICE to buy insurance. And the neat thing is that I can CHOOSE a lower price by doing everything I can to stay healthy.
However, now if the government REQUIRES me to buy insurance... well, then I suppose the government is now becoming a gangster, but that is a different story.
Edgar Munoz
Drew Bixby
You say they are making a "profit", but you are likely misusing terms. They bring in more money than they spend on YOU, but that is how they work. Somehow, they have to pay for the extra costs that occur. Many people get much more paid for them then they ever paid into insurance (which is the whole point of insurance). That money does not grow on trees. It comes from managing costs. If, in the end, the net of all revenue less all costs is positive, THEN they have a profit. To me, that is fine since that is what businesses strive to do(but not all do). Would you rather the insurance companies scrape by? Or, perhaps you prefer they lose money and go out of business?
Edgar Munoz
Drew Bixby
As you point out, you DO have a choice not to go with insurance companies. Many people do and they are not dead. Yes, it is very risky (FYI: there are many things about life that are risky.) But without insurance companies, how else would you manage the risk?
I think you real issue is with the cost of healthcare, not the cost of insurance. If your issue is with the cost of insurance, then please respond to the second part of my previous response.
Edgar Munoz
Drew Bixby
Edgar Munoz
Edgar Munoz