Health "Cost" Reform

The pharmaceutical deal ($80 billion savings over 10 years) has not been finalized and is contingent on broad, new legislation.

The good news is that it has three components: a significant increase in the discount drug that companies must give Medicaid programs, a new "fee" and a new regulatory vehicle to facilitate generic drug development.

It also addresses the "doughnut hole" problem of 3.4 million Medicare enrollees in which, once seniors and disabled on Medicare reach total drug expenses of $2,250, they must pay $3,600 themselves until the total cost reaches $5,100 and the benefit kicks in again.

The bad news is, even if this occurs, the $80 billion is only 2.4 percent of the $3.3 trillion estimated cost of health-care reform.

Another source of concern about the expense of prescription drugs is that Medicare Part D wallpapered over the fragmented pharmaceutical delivery non-system. We know when we created Medicare Part D that many of the millions of seniors and disabled affected by it were either overusing, underusing or misusing their current drugs and we actually made it easier to continue this behavior.

This is the sad state of health "care" reform -- it is really an attempt at health "cost" reform. We need to create a system-wide, integrated health-care delivery system. If we are throwing money at the current system, we are re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

By Colleen Conway-Welch  |  July 1, 2009; 12:58 PM ET  | Category:  Health Care Reform , Insurance , Medicare
Share This: Technorati | Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook
Previous: Lessons from the U.S. for the U.K. | Next: Never Underestimate Freedom of Choice

The comments to this entry are closed.