In the midst of sluggish economic growth, finding a sector of the economy growing from 15 percent of the economy up to 19 percent would normally be a cause of celebration, except that this is health care. The lack of good cheer about this growth is an indirect acknowledgement of a stark reality: We are not realizing much increased value as we spend more on health care because too much of our health dollars are going to ineffective (and often harmful) procedures.
Estimates of the waste from this overconsumption of health care range from 30 percent to 50 percent. While all of the experts talk about reducing this waste (the phrase of the day is “bending the cost curve”), the reality is that hospital administrators, pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers, insurers, consultants, think tanks and government bureaucrats all are seeing their power, control and financial remuneration increase due to this medical-care consumption growth.
All of the reformers’ trendy ideas have failed and will likely continue to fail in spite of the experts telling us they will soon figure it out. Electronic health records are a hugely expensive disaster. So far, they decrease doctor efficiency, reduce quality and increasingly make patients fearful of sharing sensitive information with their doctors for fear hackers or others will access their private data. Accountable Care Organizations turn doctors into rationers, introducing a conflict of interest between doctor and patient. Price controls by Congress or bureaucrats or oligarchic insurers only reduce access to care, demoralize doctors and introduce the risk of game playing by health systems by “up-coding” (labeling a doctor visit as more complex than it is).
