When ever demand for a product is greater than the supply, prices will rise. Under normal conditions rising prices encourage others to enter the market to take advantage of the high prices and supply more products. Also, consumers can simply switch to an appropriate substitute. This competition or exidus from the market lowers prices. However, if normal market forces are inadequate to assure the most useful allocation of a product or service that is in limited supply and indispensable for survival, there must be other means to do this. This is currently done with electricity and natural gas and is also done in times of war and famine. Hold this thought.
In estate planning for the potential of incapacity, often individuals will appoint one person to make medical decisions and another to make financial decision in the event that individual becomes incompetent to do so. Why? Because as a neighbor of mine complained, he felt his brother, who had both powers, had put his elderly parents in the cheapest most shoddy rest home he could find so that he could preserve his inheritance at his parents' expense. Hold this thought.
Historically, demand for medical care has outstripped the available supply. As a consequence, the cost for medical care has skyrocketed. So why don't normal market forces act to bring them down? One, the medical profession, with some valid basis, severely restricts the number of trained and licensed health care providers. Two, some products needed for health care are not subject to mass production: i.e. organs, tissue, blood, etc. Three, because the medical industry is aware that people will sacrifice all they have for good health, it further manipulates laws and markets to keep competition out and prices high. And four, insurance distorts the normal market forces by insulating the consumer from the consequences of their purchasing decisions. Consequently, prices artificially go up and keep going up.
So what do insurance companies do to save costs? They artificially reduce demand by excluding the unhealthy from coverage, they create mini monopolies by using their market force to negotiate lowers prices for their insured at the expense of the uninsured, and they set up mechanisms to restrict access to some avenues of health care. They also manipulate laws to allow them greater discretion in denying coverage. In essence they set up "death panels" in house or out to determine who lives and who dies.
For example, MCMC (http://www.mcmcllc.com/) is a company used by the Hartford in a case I am working on to deny insurance coverage. Here's what the company's webpage advertises:
"When you choose MCMC, LLC for a customized managed care solution for containment of medical costs, our Internet based technology, ZEBRA, ensures that your decision making process is black and white."
So what does this mean? It means, in the case of my client, that an algorithm determines what health care she is entitled to and the extent of her illness. Not a doctor, not her and her doctor, not a panel of doctors, not a group of professional health care providers--but a computer model.
People decry any system to allocate health care resources as anathema but they don't understand that it is going on right now. The reality is that there must be tension between the check writers and the health care providers just as occurs in Estate Planning for incompetency. So it's your choice, do you want "Zebra" making your health-care-allocation decisions (Mitt Romney's plan) or your doctor--Pres. Obama's plan? You decide.
http://www.mcmcllc.com/is
www.mcmcllc.com
Loren M. Lambert © October 28, 2012
In estate planning for the potential of incapacity, often individuals will appoint one person to make medical decisions and another to make financial decision in the event that individual becomes incompetent to do so. Why? Because as a neighbor of mine complained, he felt his brother, who had both powers, had put his elderly parents in the cheapest most shoddy rest home he could find so that he could preserve his inheritance at his parents' expense. Hold this thought.
Historically, demand for medical care has outstripped the available supply. As a consequence, the cost for medical care has skyrocketed. So why don't normal market forces act to bring them down? One, the medical profession, with some valid basis, severely restricts the number of trained and licensed health care providers. Two, some products needed for health care are not subject to mass production: i.e. organs, tissue, blood, etc. Three, because the medical industry is aware that people will sacrifice all they have for good health, it further manipulates laws and markets to keep competition out and prices high. And four, insurance distorts the normal market forces by insulating the consumer from the consequences of their purchasing decisions. Consequently, prices artificially go up and keep going up.
So what do insurance companies do to save costs? They artificially reduce demand by excluding the unhealthy from coverage, they create mini monopolies by using their market force to negotiate lowers prices for their insured at the expense of the uninsured, and they set up mechanisms to restrict access to some avenues of health care. They also manipulate laws to allow them greater discretion in denying coverage. In essence they set up "death panels" in house or out to determine who lives and who dies.
For example, MCMC (http://www.mcmcllc.com/) is a company used by the Hartford in a case I am working on to deny insurance coverage. Here's what the company's webpage advertises:
"When you choose MCMC, LLC for a customized managed care solution for containment of medical costs, our Internet based technology, ZEBRA, ensures that your decision making process is black and white."
So what does this mean? It means, in the case of my client, that an algorithm determines what health care she is entitled to and the extent of her illness. Not a doctor, not her and her doctor, not a panel of doctors, not a group of professional health care providers--but a computer model.
People decry any system to allocate health care resources as anathema but they don't understand that it is going on right now. The reality is that there must be tension between the check writers and the health care providers just as occurs in Estate Planning for incompetency. So it's your choice, do you want "Zebra" making your health-care-allocation decisions (Mitt Romney's plan) or your doctor--Pres. Obama's plan? You decide.
http://www.mcmcllc.com/is
www.mcmcllc.com
Loren M. Lambert © October 28, 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment