When an issue hits the front page above the fold in USAToday, you can be certain it is a crisis. Today’s paper features the looming crisis in health care, noting recent rapid rises in costs have outstripped wage increases.
The article does a good job of presenting the facts and is fairly objective, despite the somewhat alarmist headline. Notably, it does mention that governmental programs will account for just under 50% of total health care spending in 2014 (up from 45% in 2003). This is a scary number, and is the main driver behind the recent activity on Capitol Hill.
USAToday’s source was CMS’ annual report, which was the subject of numerous articles in other papers. According to California HealthLine,, in the report, the CMS analysts said that public health care expenditures in 2014 will represent “a record share that could have important implications for the budget as a whole” (AP/St. Petersburg Times, 2/24). According to CMS analysts, “barring enormous tax increases,” public health care spending in 2014 “would crowd out virtually all other spending except for the military and interest on the national debt,” the Raleigh News & Observer reports (O’Rourke, Raleigh News & Observer, 2/24
Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, said, “This is going to lead to continued erosion of health insurance coverage,” adding that rather than pay increased health insurance premiums, “low-income workers would just as soon have the money because they can’t afford to spend so much of their income on health care.”
Implications? Several…
In a talk at the Institute for The Future’s annual conference last year, I prognosticated (pessimisticaly) that it would be several years before the US was forced to do something about the uninsured. At the risk of now swinging too far to the “wildly optimistic” side, it appears that the stars may be forcing themselves into an alignment that favors some sort of national debate on the topic of health care costs, access, and coverage. That would be a very good thing.
More pragmatically, it is clear that the government cannot afford, or rather tax payers will not pay, the forecasted amounts. Inevitably this decision will lead to
–more uninsureds,
–slashed provider reimbursements,
–ever higher premiums,
–cost shifting to insureds from providers seeking to recoup lost revenue,
–higher medical costs for those fortunate enough to have private health insurance, and
—much higher costs for others whose care is paid by third parties (workers’ comp, auto, liability, etc.)
Not a pretty picture.
Feb
24
