White House Domestic Policy Advisor Allan Hubbard has been making waves of late, speaking out on behalf of consumerism in health care, advocating bigger tax breaks for health savings accounts, and demanding hospitals disclose their pricing information so consumers can make better decisions.
I’ve been blogging on consumerism in health care, the lack of useful data on prices and outcomes, and the complexities of health care buying decisions for well over a year, so no need to review those issues.
Except, one of his statements manages to simultaneously be both blatantly jingoistic and completely misleading. Here’s the quote from Sunday’s NYTimes “”no consumer is better than the American consumer at driving prices down and quality up.”
I’m not sure if Hubbard’s statement is a tortured call for patriotism as the solution to health care’s ills, or if he actually believes this drivel. Doesn’t really matter.
Every other country has some variation of nationalized health care, with some entirely nationalized (Canada), others mostly public (Britian), and others with a strict national requirement for care delivered by private providers (Switzerland). Yes, there are lots of variations and permutations, but every other country uses government to set prices for health care, not consumers.
And by the way, Allan, if you knew anything about health care you would know that the single most significant factor causing US health care to be more than 50% more expensive than other developed countries is price. And somehow you think that each individual citizen will be better equipped to demand and obtain lower prices for drugs than, say, the VA?
If that’s your position, Alan, than why are small businesses pushing so hard for Enzi’s AHP bill to allow them to capture the purchasing power of big companies?
My guess is Hubbard is another of the “every complex problem has a simple solution” guys.
What does this mean for you?
More wasted time as the Administration refuses to engage in meaningful efforts to address the health care crisis.
Apr
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There are several good reasons to at least have other actors involved in setting prices for health care beyond the provider and the consumer.
First and foremost is that the consumer is likely to not have a clue as to what is medically necessary and appropriate and at what cost it is appropriate.
Second, even if they WERE able to understand what was needed or what it should cost, they would STILL be subject to their emotional involvement in making this kind of decision. Can you hear the provider now: “Well, Mr. Smith, I think we can diagnosis this as a headache caused by allergies, without a car scan, but it could be a tumor…”
Consumers will make choices to drive down prices? Yeah right!