Following on this post from earlier in the week on the adverse impact that the third party payer system of health care finance has had on controlling health care costs, check out this Catherine Rampell post that passes along the graph on the left and the following startling observation:
ìFor every doctor, there are five people performing health care administrative support.î
And we are about to implement changes in the health care finance system that increases the third party payer element that requires much of this administrative support? While dramatically increasing the number of people covered under such a third party payment scheme with no provision for increased supply of medical services to meet that additonal demand?
What possibly could go wrong?
What most people probably don’t realize is that if I am a relatively healthy individual who only wants a high deductible catastrophic care plan and wish to pay incidental expenses from my flex spending plan, I am barred by law from purchasing such a plan under Obamacare (it prohibits deductibles above $2k for individual policies and over $4k for family policies). Why am I being commanded by a bureaucrat to pay an insurance company $100 cost to process the paperwork and administrative functions of a claim for a $75 doctor visit? Ah! That’s right – because this arrangement exemplifies “hope and change.”