Feeding The U.S. Health Care Beast
Submitted by scharrison on Sun, 08/23/2009 - 1:37pm
In the midst of our current health care debate, I see occasional opinions about the why's and where's of the skyrocketing costs of health care, and what we might do to bring them down. But this (to me) seems to have become of secondary concern, and one which will somehow fix itself with a little bit of regulation, or maybe some competition in areas where that dynamic has been absent. While some of those costs will contract a percent or two here and there, a strong dose of reality is just what the doctor ordered.
Out of our 300+ million population, roughly half are "gainfully" employed. Of that approximately 150 million workers, some 14% are employed in the health care industry. That's about 9.5% actual providers like doctors, nurses, hospital staff, etc., and the rest come from sub-sectors like pharmaceutical research & manufacturing, low- to high-tech medical equipment manufacturing and sales, consumable medical supplies, health insurers and underwriters, retailers like CVS, etc.
So what does that mean, in the cost debate? In very simple terms, every six of us who aren't in the health care industry are paying the salary of the seventh person who is. Now, if this percentage of our workforce was employed in the (now troubled) manufacturing sector, a lot more of us could shoulder the burden thanks to exported finished goods. But that doesn't work in the health care field. Aside from a few anomalies where foreign nationals travel here for care, and some exports of machinery and pharmaceuticals, most of that expended labor in the health care industry is for us Americans. We're not just talking about the tail wagging the dog, we're talking about several tails wagging the poor fella.
With these statistics in mind, I fully realize that several people reading this are currently employed in said health care sector. Please understand that I am concerned about your future employment and job security, but I also would like for you to answer the following question: How could we possibly ever substantially reduce the costs associated with health care, if such a large segment of our population is dependent on the growth and success of this industry sector for their livelihood? I see this as a major stumbling block to cost reduction, but hopefully someone reading this can prove me wrong.
The $64 bazillion dollar question
I have a strange feeling ... the movie WALL-E comes to mind for some reason.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
PS
Great post, by the way.
PPS Still waitin for ya!
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
Thanks!
I finally got a little actual on-the-road driving Thursday, and next week I'll be out there most of the time, so maybe I'll have some words of wisdom to impart. Or maybe just words of foolishness. It's all good. :)
Be safe
Any words of anything will be welcome.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
Great movie
We're definitely getting fatter already. Heck, I'm getting fatter. Before I lost my job, I was a svelte 192 lbs. or so, but now I'm waddling around at about 215 lbs. :(
Ummmmmmmm...let's see:
It strikes me that all 300 Million+ of us are engaged in the grocery business. We're either producing groceries or consuming them or cooking them or preserving them and so on. Yet, not that many of us actually work in the business. Mostly we are consumers. Just like in health care.
Your question seems, forgive me, irrelevantly esoteric. You hypothesize that cost control is difficult because of the number of people working in the industry?
Stan Bozarth
Look at it like this:
We each have to eat every day. Multiple times per day, actually, but we'll just call it once a day. But even considering an increase in doctor/hospital visits recently, we average (per person) 4 visits per year.
We spend about 14% of our annual income for something we do every day (eat), and about 8% of our annual income (if we're lucky) for something we do 4 times a year (go to the doctor). And before you say anything about "relevance", you're the one that mentioned groceries, pal. ;)
Yes, I believe since the health care sector has grown so big, and so many people are involved, that cutting costs is going to be extremely difficult. We're talking about paying somewhere in the neighborhood of 23 million salaries with 4 visits a year.
Hopefully, in time, more people
will go in to the business of medicine on the care side. Theoretically we will need more nurses and doctors if the bill that passes has a public option. I'm not really convinced of that since even people with no health insurance now still go to the doctor when they must and use the Emergency Room too, it's just being paid for in other ways.
Progressives are the true conservatives.
A bigger problem than staff jobs and all...
is becoming the shortage of doctors. This story was also on TV the other day:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/19/AR200906...
ANd I might add, I know we have subsidy programs to provide medical education for foreign students, who, many stay here for a while, then leave for their homelands. So why not use that money for low interest loans and grants to train more of our own citizens who want to do this. This is why so many in the AMA are really behind this reform movement, with a heavy backing for the single-payer system.