What I know about Health Care Reform, I learned at Walmart
Like many others, I have been working through how Health Care Reform will work. It seems logical that if you attempt to make coverage available to everyone, it is going to increase costs. Doctors and Health Care Providers are already being squeezed by payments and half of the hospitals in the country are losing money. For some reason, saving by cutting more costs doesn't seem to make sense. But, I had an epiphany earlier this year at Walmart.
I made a trip to visit my mother and she wanted to go out to a few stores and pick up some items. She is in her late 80's, had a hip injury, so was using a walker; but she still loves to shop. Our last stop was Walmart; she had bought some blueberries the previous week for $2.99 for a 2" container on sale. On this day, the blueberries were $2.99 for a 1" container. Since she watches her expenses, she was sure that there was a mistake and shouldn't have to pay the same amount for half the amount. She said something about talking to the produce manager as I was putting the blueberries in the cart. By the time I looked up, she had covered half of the Walmart produce department on her way to the manager. As we caught up with her (impressive with a walker), the manager was just explaining the pricing. Here is his final statement, "They didn't increase the price, they just reduced the amount of blueberries in the containers." Now, I understand.
Health Care Providers are already being paid less and are forced to see more patients per hour to make up the difference. With the increased workload, we will not be seeing an increase of some specialists and particularly family practice doctors. The government plan is to further reduce payments to doctors and other providers to "save" money so that everyone can have affordable health care. Also, there will be a substantial amount of money spent to cover those who are currently uninsured.
So, as we go down this road and realize that the amount of money spent is not enough, we either have to increase what is paid (unlikely) or decrease what is covered. When we reach that point our politicians will be proud of the fact that, "we aren't increasing the cost, we are just covering less." They really should hire that produce manager to explain why it's not that we don't have enough doctors, we just have too many people." If it weren't so scary, this could be interesting.
TVP tvp@dyingforinsurance.com
I made a trip to visit my mother and she wanted to go out to a few stores and pick up some items. She is in her late 80's, had a hip injury, so was using a walker; but she still loves to shop. Our last stop was Walmart; she had bought some blueberries the previous week for $2.99 for a 2" container on sale. On this day, the blueberries were $2.99 for a 1" container. Since she watches her expenses, she was sure that there was a mistake and shouldn't have to pay the same amount for half the amount. She said something about talking to the produce manager as I was putting the blueberries in the cart. By the time I looked up, she had covered half of the Walmart produce department on her way to the manager. As we caught up with her (impressive with a walker), the manager was just explaining the pricing. Here is his final statement, "They didn't increase the price, they just reduced the amount of blueberries in the containers." Now, I understand.
Health Care Providers are already being paid less and are forced to see more patients per hour to make up the difference. With the increased workload, we will not be seeing an increase of some specialists and particularly family practice doctors. The government plan is to further reduce payments to doctors and other providers to "save" money so that everyone can have affordable health care. Also, there will be a substantial amount of money spent to cover those who are currently uninsured.
So, as we go down this road and realize that the amount of money spent is not enough, we either have to increase what is paid (unlikely) or decrease what is covered. When we reach that point our politicians will be proud of the fact that, "we aren't increasing the cost, we are just covering less." They really should hire that produce manager to explain why it's not that we don't have enough doctors, we just have too many people." If it weren't so scary, this could be interesting.
TVP tvp@dyingforinsurance.com
Posted by The Virtual Patient at 7/9/2009 8:36 PM 
Categories: Irony,Politics,Universal Healthcare,Costs
Tags: universal health irony Insurance health care coverage Politics cost
Categories: Irony,Politics,Universal Healthcare,Costs
Tags: universal health irony Insurance health care coverage Politics cost
I really like the comparison here with the market. Hopefully the health care plan works out to our benefit in the long run. Personally I just don't see it happening. I'd rather have all of my blueberries so to speak.
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