The Elephant In The Room

Health care is the focus of a national debate that never seems to end. So called “experts” on health care delivery offer all kinds of suggestions and advice to solving the health care financing crisis in this country yet they won’t admit the journey towards solving the crisis will soon end.

In my circle, for example, the discussion centers around performance based medicine, reference based pricing strategies, point of service claim adjudication/payment, wellness programs, direct contracting, value based outcomes and more. But all secretly recognize there is an Elephant in The Room.

The Elephant in The Room is the inevitable coming of a single payer health care system to this country. It’s only a few elections away and we all know it. Americans are fed up with the high cost of health care. Many employers  are simply running out of money to pay for it. The American middle class who has been bearing the brunt of the cost is a vanishing, diminishing class. Hospitals and third party intermediaries continue to raise pricing, compounded year after year well beyond true inflationary pressures. Drug manufacturers are reaping record profits on drugs that sell as much as 80% – 90% less overseas.

The experts mentioned above have the answers to solving our health care crisis and the proof to go with it but few seem to be listening………….

– Bill Rusteberg

The following article is about that Elephant:

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