BrianGarst.com

The Washington Post tells us the obvious:

U.S. ‘Not Getting What We Pay For’

Talk to the chief executives of America’s preeminent health-care institutions, and you might be surprised by what you hear: When it comes to medical care, the United States isn’t getting its money’s worth. Not even close.

“We’re not getting what we pay for,” says Denis Cortese, president and chief executive of the Mayo Clinic. “It’s just that simple.”

“Our health-care system is fraught with waste,” says Gary Kaplan, chairman of Seattle’s cutting-edge Virginia Mason Medical Center. As much as half of the $2.3 trillion spent today does nothing to improve health, he says.

… “There is more than enough money in the system,” said former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who runs the District-based Center for Health Transformation. “We just are not spending it well.”

Eliminating waste and spending more on preventative care and less on worthless services is all well and good, but simply deciding to do so isn’t going to solve he problems we have now. After all, there are reasons these things happen now, and it is those reasons that must be addressed.

The biggest problem right now is that the consumer is completely insulated from health costs. Our third-party payer system makes waste a guarantee. And fee for service, rather than care, models make providers complicit. The single most important thing we can do to control spiraling health costs is make consumers price sensitive. It works for every other good, it will work for health care.