Ask most anyone and I'm betting they will name absurdly soaring health-care costs as America's No. 1 problem; an economic and personal threat in dire need of meaningful reform.
That's certainly how I feel, followed closely by the pressing need to rebuild our economy and streamline national security during an era of screeching loons and threats from extremists, all of whom believe only their viewpoints matter in the supposed Land of the Free.
Knowing how complex the U.S. health-care system has become to understand or explain, I turned for a thoughtful explanation the other day to David Fitton of Harrison for two reasons. First, David is one of the most thoughtful and analytical people I know. Secondly, he always does his homework before speaking.
My question was simple enough: Why is our health-care system the most expensive on the planet yet nowhere near the finest available for how much we're paying for it?
The way he put it, the costs involved in caring for people in our country are the highest on earth and it's a deadly serious problem that can't possibly be fixed with some politicized tweaks.
Turns out he'd been researching that very point and, sure enough, had compiled six basic reasons he's found that are as convoluted yet as self-serving as we all suspect:
First, insurance companies--while providing a service, their overhead expenses and profits mean a large percentage of premium payments don't reach the health-care system. In short, it's not cost-effective.
That's followed by the fact that prescription drugs here cost more, often a lot more. The reason? Drug companies (aka Big Pharma) amortize their research costs on sales within the United States rather than worldwide. And, he says, he's found the actual costs of producing many, perhaps even most, medicinal drugs is relatively very small.
Next, the costs involved with staying in a hospital--"It's become totally out of control," he tells me. "A stay can run as much as $12,000 a day as compared with less than $1,000 in most European countries. The single most culprit contributing to our costs are the procedures." For example, he cites a CT scan costing $1,500 in America compared with $183 in France.
The fourth cause, his research determined, involves compensation for physicians, which in part is due to the outrageous cost for a medical education in our nation. "Advanced education is the only area of our economy that has increased even faster than health care," he said. "The average office visit and doctor's salaries in the U.S. run two-and-a-half times as high as their counterparts in Europe."
Then, of course, comes the lawyers. He said we have three times the number of attorneys per capita as in the United Kingdom and eight times the number in France. "Health care is an easy target for litigation," he said, "And that in turn adds costs for the drug company who must defend the inevitable lawsuits as well as malpractice premiums, all of which are passed along to the taxpaying consumer."
Finally, there is you and me and half the nation now deemed to be overweight, or the 35 percent who are flat-out obese. Don't believe it? Just head out for a shopping visit to your nearest big-box retailer and look around. And all that certainly contributes in a significant way to increasing health-care costs from diabetes onward.
By comparison, David says rates of obesity in high-carb Italy and France hover just under 20 percent.
"The most alarming fact is that our obesity rate has been and continues to trend in the wrong direction despite billions of dollars taxpayers are spending on health education annually," he continued. "The result obviously is a cost issue and also one that has a negative result on quality of life."
The trend might be even higher were we not spending enormous amounts of money on education, but the larger question is are there far more cost-effective methods that could actually reverse this undeniable health scourge?
I've found as a diabetic that simply working out for an hour three days a week and laying off the sugar and simple carbohydrates (which convert to sugar in the body) can work wonders in dropping a lot of weight. Oh, and drinking a lot of water daily.
David and I agree that these grossly inflated health-care costs have become the largest factor contributing to the mountain range of a budget deficit we face as well as our unfunded liabilities.
And whether you agree with what's said today or not, it's obvious we must discover ways to simplify and reduce this blended concoction of exploding health-care costs. Otherwise, I suspect they alone are enough to put our nation in the poorhouse without so much as a Band-Aid.
Saturday columns
A reminder to valued readers: My Saturday columns are now available only online. You can get there by accessing the paper's website and clicking on opinion, or directly at arkansasonline.com/staff/mike-masterson. See ya there.
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Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial on 08/29/2017