All Our Problems in One Graph
This is Sarah Kliff, writing at Ezra Klein’s blog:
The study actually isn’t good news when you look into what type of health jobs propelled this strong growth. Most of it, the study authors conclude, came from an increase in administrative positions, jobs like billing specialists and office support staff. It’s quite likely that more people with health insurance mean more resources necessary to bill insurance companies and administer the business of health care.
An increase in those kind of jobs is great for employment. But it’s not so great for health care costs. It’s part of the reason that American doctors have administrative costs four times higher than their Canadian counterparts. It likely contributes to growing health care costs that have eaten up nearly a decade worth of increased earnings. And it’s why, at the same time that health care jobs increase, we also have graphs like this:
Not a good sign for folks that plan to be alive after 2025. However, antibiotic resistance might solve some of our funding issues by allowing a resurgence in bacterial plagues. Either way, the future doesn’t look so great.
In another 40 years I will be on Medicare near the end of my live and that steep spending curve will be me. So don’t knock it. That’s my ventilator in the ICU you’re trying to unplug!
According to the London Times, the National Health Service is the third largest employer in the world. Only the Chinese army and the Indian Railway Service are believed to employ more people.
The closer the U.S. gets to single payer care the more people will be employed in health care and the lower their productivity will be.
The real question is not the administrative cost faced by physicians, it is how productive they are.
Fascinating graph.
WOW!