One More Reason for the Universal Health Savings Account
This is from a Victoria Knight article in today's Wall Street Journal:
An iPod-sized device….sends patients reminders to take their medications and records their compliance….and, if they choose, their doctors can track through a companion Web page.
This is one of a large number of self-care tools coming on the market. HealthVault, a creation of Microsoft, can accept, store and integrate data from 50 different devices.
I suppose there are two things you can do: (1) give all your health care dollars to a third-party-payer bureaucracy and then argue about who is going to pay for what, device by device, or (2) come over to our side.
John – doesn’t it strike you as funny that none of the barrage of surveys and reports highlight the fact that this Congress has done very little to make health care more affordable?
E-prescribing is arguably the most this Congress has done to reduce costs. SCHIP was an extension. Other bills that have been or will get done – Genetic non-discrimination, revised mental health parity, increased litigation for nursing homes – whatever your views on these bills may be – will likely increase costs. One bill that will reduce costs (health IT) is in limbo. Meanwhile, tobacco regulation, follow-ons, cross-state purchasing, and health tax credits or vouchers won’t be addressed.
I guess my point is it’s nice to point out problems; it is much more difficult to address them.
Dr. Ben Brewer’s weekly column in the WSJ today looks at the advantages on telemedicine. Read [here] He says, “The average American's health-care experience is fraught with high cost, poor service and uncertain quality. But the prudent practice of medicine online would improve health care on all three counts…”
For more, see my newly released analysis of the NCPA study on telemedicine. [here]