U.S. Health Care System Wasting Billions, and Other Health Care News
A new report today from Thomson Reuters shows how badly the nation’s health care system is failing working families. The report estimates that more than $500 billion, and maybe as much as $800 billion, is being wasted every year. Health costs in the United States are so high because standard practices are so wasteful. If we can recover savings from that waste, it would far exceed the cost of health care legislation being considered in Congress—legislation that can provide more people with affordable, quality coverage.
Some “highlights” from this unsettling report:
- The average hospital is spending a quarter of its budget on billing and paperwork.
- Tens of billions of dollars a year are wasted because of outdated, paper-based records systems that discourage information sharing.
- Conditions like uncontrolled diabetes that should be avoided through smart preventative care cost tens of billions a year.
- Medical mistakes and unnecessary care cost hundreds of billions a year.
A Robust Public Option Creates Competition
Stopping by “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC last night, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka discussed why the AFL-CIO supports health care reform legislation that makes sure Big Insurance doesn’t monopolize the health care field—and why the bill passed this week by the Senate Finance Committee, which does not include a public option, must be improved as it goes through Congress.
Right now as your last guest [Wendell Potter, former Cigna executive] said, American insurance companies have a stranglehold on the health care industry. In 90 percent of the markets, they’re called highly concentrated, or there’s one or two companies that control them. As a result, profits have gone up 1,000 percent and premiums have gone up 300 percent. The only way to hold them accountable is to create competition and the only way you can create competition is with a robust public option.
Alison Stewart, who filled in for Maddow, asked Trumka:
Let’s talk about the public option. Is it a make or break issue?
His answer:
Absolutely.
Auto Crisis Threatens Entire Economy; Union Ready to Do Its Part—Again
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If Congress does not soon approve emergency loan legislation to keep Detroit’s Big Three automakers operating as they ride out the nation’s financial crisis, job losses will ripple not just through the auto industry but through the entire economy, warned UAW President Ron Gettelfinger.
At a news conference today following an emergency meeting with UAW local and regional leaders, Gettelfinger said the union is willing to “take the extra step” to aid the industry. Union leaders, he said, have agreed to delay automakers’ payments to a union-administered health care fund and to modify the union’s job banks program that provides laid-off workers with a portion of their wages and benefits.
But he reiterated that UAW members already have agreed to wage and benefit concessions that have lowered labor costs at the Big Three.
