Dallas Health Care Ranks Poorly

I've often written about the high (and climbing) cost of health care in America. Our nation spends two or three times what other industrialized countries due to take care of their citizens. Perhaps the reason this is such a sore subject with me is the fact that Dallas, Texas is one of the most expensive health care markets in the country.

The Commonwealth Fund released a report on Wednesday that ranked Dallas 264th out of 306 hospital referral regions across the nation. Granted, it wasn't only cost that caused the low ranking but also the number of uninsured in our area. The story in the local Dallas Morning News said that "Dallas health care representatives did not dispute the report's findings but said many parts of the community are working to improve the situation."

Meanwhile, I'm heading into the hospital tomorrow to repair a torn tendon and I can assure you that it's not going to be a cheap process. I completely agree with the Commonwealth Fund's report!

Bernanke Testimony

Yesterday Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified in front of Congress about the state of the economy. One of the key points in his discussion was when he called rising health care costs the "elephant in the room" that no one is talking about seriously yet.

I've raised the question of how to control health care inflation many times in this blog. I've noted that all of the other industrialized countries use some form of national health program. With only one source of payment it's possible to control the cost of health care far more effectively. The free-market model in America is one of the reasons we have the highest cost of health care in the world today.

Is there another way to reduce the cost of health care other than limiting and controlling what will be paid for health care? I haven't heard of one yet. I'd love to find one, anything, that we can do to stop this runaway train from bankrupting our country. As it is now, rather than controlling what we pay for health care in America we're going to end up limiting how much health care you get. That's the most profitable model for the medical industry in this nation.

International Berard Day

A pioneer in his field, Dr Guy Bérard has helped thousands of people around the world. To mark his extraordinary life and achievements, Bérard International Day will celebrate his 96th birthday on 20 January 2012. Auditory Integration Training (AIT), an auditory retraining programme, has been the crowning achievement of his life and has helped many people to dramatically improve their lives.

To bring his work to a wider audience, he wrote his book, recently republished as 'Hearing Equals Behavior: Expanded and Updated'

AIT is a non-invasive centre-based programme for children and adults with sensory difficulties. It involves listening to modified music through headphones for 30 minutes, twice a day for a period of 10 days as a method of retraining the auditory system. The programme addresses under or over sensitivity in hearing and reduces distortions which may affect auditory processing as well as behaviours. Following AIT many clients report functional improvements in areas affecting social, emotional, behavioural or academic performance. It's been shown to help with ADD/ADHD.

Time for Action

A recent column in the Dallas Morning News shows why the time to reform health care has to be now. Steve Jacobs collected health care cost information illustrating why America may have already waited too long to get serious about health care.

By 2020 the average health insurance premium will be $24,917 compared to $14,623 in 2010 according to a Commonwealth Fund analysis. More important, the trend of employees sharing a larger percentage of the cost will continue so the $3,702 in 2010 will grow to an estimated $10,800. Don't think the deductible situation will improve because that's going to rise from an average $1,942 in 2010 to about $5,500 in 2020.

Mr. Jacobs calls this growing financial burden a household budgetary albatross. I think he's being kind. I think this problem will literally be the kiss of death for many.

Kobo e-Reader

My hard-working publisher, Victor at Loving Healing Press, has another huge achievement to start 2012. Now my book is available for Kobo, the #1 e-reader in Canada (also available in U.S.). Check it out at Kobo.

The Growing Cost of Health Care

Is it better to have health care rationed by a government bureaucrat or by your own inability to pay for it? If you don't think it makes any difference then you're ignoring the potential for huge cost savings for everyone. In a nationalized health care system the government controls all health care and sets the pricing. America has free-market health care so prices have no control and every step in the system is free to charge whatever the market will bear in order to maximize profits. Doctors want to make more money, hospitals want to make more money, insurance companies want to make more money and so on.

Many Americans think we have the best health care system in the world. We don't. We have the most expensive health care system. How can you believe it's the best health care when we aren't as healthy or live as long as those in other industrialized countries? Depending on which study you read we rank #33 to #38 for longevity in the world putting us behind not only every other industrialized country but even behind many so-called, second-world countries. We don't live as long and we don't live as well. In many cases it's because we put off health care because of the expense. Today we're spending 17% of our nation's total Gross Domestic Product on health care while other industrialized countries are spending 7% - 12%. This is not a small difference!

Recently I was reminded of this increasingly dire situation after going through some medical tests. The bills are still rolling in months later and even though my insurance plan pays part of it, just keeping up with my share of each bill can be challenging. It scares me to think about what a major surgery or health crisis would cost. For a growing number of people every year it means either being healthy or going bankrupt. Rationing by cost, even bankruptcy, isn't any better than the restrictions of a government-run system and due to our escalating costs it's much more likely.

Every year medical inflation rises more than regular inflation (and much more than salary increases) so it's like compound interest. It grows and grows and keeps growing out of control. Every level of our health care system wants to maximize their profits, and they do. If you look at a graph of the rise in our incomes and the rise in medical costs in the past forty years you'd be sickened by the huge and growing gap in affordability.

Think for a moment if America had enacted some type of national health care plan when Clinton was president. Can you imagine how more affordable health care would be today because we wouldn't have nearly 20 years of medical inflation compounding costs? Instead we let the TV commercials of Harry and Sally persuade us to let the health care system continue to take more and more of our money.

The question today is: What are we going to do about it? Many people complain about Obamacare but I haven't heard any suggestions that will do any better. A free-market system does not work in health care, we have plenty of research showing that from all over the country. Dallas is one of the most "competitive" markets in the country because we have so many different companies that are supposed to be competing for our health care business. Instead of lowering costs this is one of the most expensive markets in the nation. Just down the highway in Waco, Texas the Scott-White medical system enjoys a near monopoly in the market prices are lower and it has a higher performance ranking than Dallas. In the health care field competition simply means trying to charge more than the guy down the street.

So what do we do? As individuals and as a nation we're facing the prospect of health care bankrupting us. How much lower does America need to fall in the world rankings or how much more of our GDP does it need to cost before we come up with a different system? One highly respected doctor I know predicted decades ago that if America's health care costs ever reached 8% of our GDP, health care would be nationalized. Today it costs more than twice that amount and it continues to grow every day we do nothing to change it.

Better Safe Than Sorry

There is an interesting and major difference in the attitudes of Americans and Europeans regarding products. In America we let almost everything come to market in order to let the free enterprise system work and if there are any safety problems, well, those will show up later. Europeans take much safer (and wiser in my opinion) attitude and assume everything is dangerous and only allow a product to be sold if it's been proven safe.

This issue comes to mind again with the recent publication in Pediatrics magazine about the dangers of the widely-used chemical bisphenol-A (BPA). In a recent study it was shown that exposure to BPA even before birth can impact the health of a child. Preschool-age children whose mothers had relatively high levels of BPA during pregnancy scored worse (but still within "normal" range) on behavior measures. These behaviors included anxiety and hyperactivity.

Meanwhile the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continues to study BPA exposure.