Uwe Reinhart on the current state of reform
Uwe Reinhart offered some perspective on the current state of healthcare reform during a keynote speech at Community Hospital in Monterey, Calif. Here’s a summary from the Monterey County Herald:
Reinhardt represented America as an ill-equipped motorcyclist about to crash.
“We can see these rugged bikers roaring past our cars … T-shirts flapping in the wind, with a bandanna at most as protective headgear,” Reinhardt wrote.
“Even if the motorcyclist had little savings and did not carry health insurance, he surely would expect to be taken by ambulance or helicopter to the nearest hospital emergency room for whatever treatment was critically needed, however expensive.”
Renhardt believes that this irresponsible attitude drives up health care costs for everyone.
As an example, Reinhardt asked the Community Hospital audience to imagine a blue-collar American couple working in retail or at a big-box store. Together, he said, they might bring home $40,000 a year. But the Milliman Medical Index, which benchmarks total heath spending for a typical American family of four, said average costs are currently around $16,700 a year. This makes standard health care expenses 42% of income.
“This will only get worse,” Reinhardt cautioned, because wages are not rising fast enough to cover health care.
Assuming current trends in growth of health care costs and wages, he showed that in 2019 more than half of that same family’s wages could go to health care.
Reinhardt described the American middle class as “sailing into a perfect storm.” Lower-class families are beginning to be priced out of health care and middle-class families will be increasingly uninsured to save money, he warned.
Reinhardt described three things needed for basic health care reform:
· Many young, healthy people with few costs to offset the older, unhealthy few who rack up huge bills.
· A large number of insurance subscribers to make it economically viable for insurance companies.
· Adequate subsidies toward the purchase of health insurance for consumers.
“It’s like a three-legged stool,” Reinhardt emphasized. “You can’t sit on it for very long if it has two legs.”
Recent Comments