Post by dgriffin on Nov 8, 2009 9:08:32 GMT -5
The Wall Street Journal's "Question of the Day."
Do you agree with the House passing the bill to overhaul health care?
One reader's response.
Grant Grigorian wrote:
"I do not agree with the bill the house passed because it does not do enough to reduce waste and inefficiency in the health care system.
There are a number actions that can be taken now or invested in for the near future that would bring health care costs down. A national system, for example, to hold patient records that would be accessible to physicians authorized by the patient would reduce having to re-do x-rays and tests.
Tort reform should be required to be passed by all states that wish to be eligible for Federal funds to support health care. Tort reform with the aim of determining 'reasonable' and predictable' damages to be awarded to plaintiffs that win their cases would reduce insurance premiums that we end up paying for as health care consumers. Also it would eliminate needless tests and the 'over-treatment' of patients that doctors feel compelled to prescribe so they don't 'miss something' that could result in a malpractice case left to a unconstrained jury to review.
Next, hospitals spend huge amounts of time and resources on administrative actions such as record keeping and filing claims to insurance companies. A standard record keeping process should be developed, one time, to used be all hospitals. This hardly is a basis for competitive advantage so I wouldn't feel bad making it compulsory for medical providers and hospitals to use. Also, multiple systems and processes for submitting claims to insurance companies should be replaced by one process/system. That would reduce complexity and training requirements for administrators and overall cut costs in an area of a hospital's cost structure that has little to do with delivering outstanding health care. Standardizing administrative processes will reduce costs also by hospitals not having to pay multiple times to develop and implement discreet IT systems customized for their own perceived requirements to communicate with multiple insurance companies and their discreet systems.
If there were items in this bill that included investment in actions like these to cut the overall cost of healthcare I would support it. For now, I am angry that even one penny of my tax dollars will go to support this bloated, inefficient health care delivery system. "
