The Culture of Excess

How America Lost Self-Control and Why We Need to Redefine Success

By J.R. Slosar
Praeger/ABC-CLIO

From the Introduction

The first chapter provides a background of definition and symptoms of narcissism and its application to our culture and society. The complexity of the concept is presented from history, research, and application. Chapter 2 separates out the factors in the economic marketplace that contribute to cultural narcissism. Chapter 3 focuses on coping with the impact of the factors of cultural narcissism, and explores reality and loss, rigidity and self-destruction, and perfectionism and deception. The fourth chapter looks at our avoidance and anxiety of numbers, math or quantitative analysis, a cultural weakness that opens the door to faulty comparisons and poor decisions. A different perspective is offered in Chapter 5, as our health care system is offered as a primary example of how our society sanctions cultural narcissism and self-defeating behavior. Chapter 6 focuses upon changes in reality and hero images as representative of today’s cultural narcissism. An analysis of sports as a dramatic seeking of reality is discussed. Chapter 7 discusses identity theory and development with the focus on today’s youth and how they see and present themselves. Finally, the last chapter summarizes, integrates, and offers structural recommendations to help change directions and return to a more balanced and realistic appraisal of our economic system and our day-to-day lives and decisions.

From Chapter 5 – Health Care: Waste, Excess and Brokers

The dramatic insistence on free market principles and competition determines the way  health care is delivered today. The entire process exemplifies the culture of excess and cultural narcissism. The excess comes from the tremendous waste of money and resources. This is coupled with the ability of brokers and corporate entities to overcharge and take out money at everyone else’s expense. These are the entitled “me” in the equation. The rest of us continue to pay more and more and even get less and less. Or, many just cannot afford health care at all. Facts and meaningful comparisons are dismissed and not considered by the fear of an alternative labeled as Socialism.

From Chapter 8 – Generation We

To address current trends, our culture must develop a new generation that will move toward a different concept and process of attaining success or “making it.” This new concept is based on connectedness with culture and has a broader perspective of inclusiveness. It also involves having less sense of entitlement, more realistic expectations, and more willingness to regulate one’s own behavior and the marketplace we live in. These are the components need to develop a Generation of We. To effect these changes will mean challenging basic economic assumptions and the elevated status of established economic theories and principles. In turn, we must challenge our current definition of success. The transition from a “me” society to a “we” society can be framed as the classic dichotomy of individualism versus collectivism. But it is a larger and more complex issue than that.

The literature in social psychology is extensive in arguing about the issue of what comes first in order to change. Is it necessary to change behavior first, for change to occur – or is it necessary to change attitude before behavior change can occur? The dichotomy of behavior versus attitude for individuals to change is also applicable to our culture. Changes in individual behavior will principally follow changes dictated by policy. Our mass consumption society will only redirect when forced to. Narcissistic entitlement is too high – self-control is pummeled and expectations of voluntary change are naive. The cycle and patterns  of the culture of excess are too ingrained. As a result, regulation in policy will be an important factor in the change process, and replace the conscious efforts of deregulation and no regulation. As discussed earlier, the cultural deregulation and no regulation movement has deregulated our inner mechanisms of individual self-control. Changes in attitude and thinking will also be related to policy; however, confrontation must occur between current attitudes and thinking that is “me based.” Challenging some existing and entrenched beliefs about economics and economic growth will be necessary for change to occur.

http://www.cultureofexcess.com/

When you look at different models of health care delivery and its financing, the logic of single payer prevails. President Obama has stated such, and even many conservatives agree, though ideologically opposed. So it has been difficult for those of us who support health care justice to understand why there has not been an adequate national grassroots uprising demanding the enactment of an improved Medicare for all. Dr. Slosar’s book provides some insight as to why.

In “The Culture of Excess,” Dr. Slosar gives us the perspective of the discipline of psychology, both as applied to individuals and as applied to our culture. He explains how cultural narcissism has permeated our society and has led to the culture of excess. As the “me” society has dominated over the “we” society, narcissism has suppressed the support for collective solutions to our social problems. Within that framing, it is easier to understand why a near-perfect “we” solution for health care reform – single payer Medicare for all – was rejected in favor of the highly-flawed “me” solution – the individual private insurance plans.

Although the process will not be easy, Dr. Slosar shows us why addressing our cultural narcissism must be an integral part of achieving health care justice for all. In a Generation We, everyone will have the health care that they need.

Gingrich in Va.: A Republican Congress could defund health care law

By Rosalind Helderman
The Washington Post
May 14, 2010

(Former House Speaker Newt) Gingrich’s comments came at a health-care industry sponsored conference held by Center for Health Transformation, a project of his consulting firm.

Gingrich argued the federal law has been intentionally designed to encourage businesses to drop health care for their employees, incurring a new fine in the law for not offering insurance. Employees will then enter new individual health exchanges, Gingrich argued, but find them so expensive that they will clamor for a nationalized health care system.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/virginiapolitics/2010/05/former_speaker_of_the_house.html

Although we don’t agree with Newt Gingrich’s solution for our health system’s problems (computerize and privatize the entire system), we do agree with him and the multitude of other conservatives who state that the intolerable costs of health care eventually will drive the nation to demand a nationalized health care system. It’s just too bad that so much more suffering will take place before we arrive there.

Our Principles

British Medical Association (BMA)

The BMA is against the increasing commercialisation of patient care. We want to see the NHS restored as a public service working co-operatively for patients, not a market of commercial businesses competing with each other. That’s why we’re campaigning for an NHS which:

1. Provides high quality, comprehensive healthcare for all, free at the point of use

2. Is publicly funded through central taxes, publicly provided and publicly accountable

3. Significantly reduces commercial involvement

4. Uses public money for quality healthcare, not profits for shareholders

5. Cares for patients through co-operation, not competition

6. Is led by medical professionals working in partnership with patients and the public

7. Seeks value for money but puts the care of patients before financial targets

8. Is fully committed to training future generations of medical professionals

http://www.lookafterournhs.org.uk/for-doctors/our-principles/

Who could understand better the British National Health Service than the physicians of the British Medical Association? Their experience has led them to take a strong stand against for-profit commercialization of health care. Are physicians in the United States fundamentally that much different from those in Great Britain? Don’t think so.

Bankrupt beacon of privatized health-care

By Gillian Steward
thestar.com
May 11, 2010

A Calgary for-profit hospital, once a beacon of hope for medical entrepreneurs across the country, declared bankruptcy last week. And who will have to pick up the pieces? None other than the public health-care system and ultimately Alberta taxpayers.

For years, critics predicted that this experiment in privatized health care would prove unreliable and expensive. But no one imagined a scenario in which publicly funded Alberta Health Services would go to court in a bid to keep the lights on over the operating tables in an investor-owned hospital. No one imagined that AHS would be paying receivership fees in order to keep the doors open. But this is, in fact, what has happened because Calgary’s public health-care system is so reliant on private partners.

The private hospital, Health Resource Centre, was once the focal point of premier Ralph Klein’s health-care strategies. It was for the benefit of HRC and its bevy of investors and orthopedic surgeons that in 2000 the Alberta government passed the Health Care Protection Act, which allowed private surgical clinics to keep patients overnight, thus allowing HRC to perform hip and knee replacements that had previously been permitted only in public hospitals.

The Klein government had already closed three public hospitals in Calgary as it pared its budget in order to eliminate the deficit. So there was indeed a shortage of operating theatres, a shortage HRC was quite prepared to fill. It had taken over space in one of the hospitals that had been closed and sold off. And it had been lobbying government ministers and local health authority administrators in an effort to secure contracts to provide surgeries for publicly insured patients who could not be accommodated in the public hospitals.

In 2004, HRC finally hit pay dirt. The regional health authority awarded it a two-year contract worth $20 million for the provision of 2,500 hip and knee surgeries. The health authority acknowledged that it was paying 10 per cent more than what it would cost if the surgeries were done in a public hospital but, given the shortage of operating theatres, it didn’t have much choice.

The contracts continued and HRC became so successful that it decided to expand and rent expensive space in a new development. That’s when HRC ran into trouble. Before it had even moved in, the developer claimed HRC had defaulted on payments. HRC claimed that Alberta Health Services had cut back on promised contracts, and declared bankruptcy.

AHS then went to court to try and save HRC, for without it there are not enough operating theatres to accommodate all the patients scheduled for surgery.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/807403–steward-bankrupt-beacon-of-privatized-health-care

And…

Clinic rescue costs $2.8M

By Colette Derworiz
Calgary Herald
May 12, 2010

Alberta Health Services will spend at least $2.8 million to keep a financially troubled private surgical centre operating for the next eight months, sparking outrage the Stelmach government is using taxpayer money to prop up a for-profit enterprise.

Health Resource Centre — a private facility owned by Networc Health Inc. — will stay open to perform publicly funded knee and hip replacement surgeries after the Edmonton-based medical superboard took the unusual step of filing legal action to fend off a possible bankruptcy.

But the intervention comes with a price tag for taxpayers after AHS ended up buying $1.3 million of the company’s outstanding bank loans (at full value) to bolster the superboard’s legal standing in the case as a secured creditor.

In addition, AHS agreed to pay $600,000 in interim receivership costs and the clinic’s monthly rent — which will work out to nearly $960,000 from now until January — to Northwest Healthcare Properties, the landlord

“You have to wonder how many times taxpayers have to pay for the same service,” said Liberal MLA Kevin Taft. “Taxpayers seem to be on several hooks at once for this debt. It’s expensive for the taxpayers, unnerving for the patients and it’s gotta be difficult for the staff. This is just lose, lose, lose.”

Proponents of public health care said it’s an expensive lesson.

“AHS paying $100,000 a month on a building they sold for a song just rubs salt in the wounds of the paying public,” said David Eggen of Friends of Medicare.

Dr. Tom Noseworthy, a health policy expert at the University of Calgary, said the region “needed some breathing room” to continue delivering the surgeries.

“For practical purposes, that private enterprise has become an extension of their business, or shall we say, our business,” he said. “Private health-care delivery is never cheaper, it’s never of better quality and you don’t get better outcomes. I don’t know how many times we have to say that.”

http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/Clinic+rescue+costs/3017404/story.html

And…

Calgary Herald

July and August 2005

Premier Ralph Klein:  “Let me be blunt. We have unacceptable waiting lists in our publicly funded, rationed health-care system, and all the money in the world is not going to eliminate them.”

Don McCanne:  “Ralph Klein states that ‘all the money in the world’ is not going to eliminate waiting lists, unless the source of the funds is private instead of public. What nonsense.”

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2005/august/albertas_premier_kl.php

Right-wing ideologues, such as former premier Ralph Klein of Alberta, have continued to push for more privatization of Canada’s health care system. They claim that the private sector provides greater access and higher quality at a lower cost. As if they didn’t have enough contrary evidence from the United States, they have continued with their experiments in privatization.

The experience with Health Resource Centre – a private, for-profit hospital – reinforces the proponents of the public system who use health policy science to sound the alarms over the ill-advised march toward further privatization.

The current saga began with Premier Klein’s notion that public hospitals had to be shut down because the taxpayers couldn’t afford them, yet private hospitals should position themselves to address the problem of excess queues which were further exacerbated by the failure of the government to appropriately adjust capacity in the system. He seems to imply that private funds manifest some sort of magical quality that public funds lack.

The results of this experiment would suggest the opposite. The for-profit Health Resource Center not only provided the same orthopedic services at a 10 percent greater cost, the center is now going to cost the taxpayers much more money in an effort to bail it out. This could have been prevented if Klein and others of his ilk had provided appropriate stewardship of the public program. Tweaking a public system is far less expensive than establishing a parallel private system.

Dr. Tom Noseworthy, health policy expert at the University of Calgary, states it well when he says, “Private health-care delivery is never cheaper, it’s never of better quality and you don’t get better outcomes. I don’t know how many times we have to say that.”

2010 Milliman Medical Index

Milliman, Inc.
May 2010

The annual Milliman Medical Index (MMI) reports total annual medical spending for a typical American family of four covered by an employer-sponsored preferred provider organization (PPO) program. The MMI represents the total cost of payments to healthcare providers, and excludes the non-medical administrative component of health plan premiums.

The total 2010 medical cost for a typical American family of four is $18,074.

This is an increase of 7.8%. This is the third year in a row that the annual rate of increase has been below 8%; however, the dollar increase of $1,303 is still the highest we have seen in the last 10 years and since the inception of this index.

Cost Implications of Healthcare Reform on Family of Four

While employers are making the immediate changes required to their benefit plans and adapting their longer-term benefit strategy to the new regulatory environment, healthcare costs continue to increase at rates exceeding most other costs of doing business. Debate continues on the extent to which the changes from healthcare reform have potential to bend the long-term cost curve; however, for the near term, the underlying drivers of increasing healthcare costs are not expected to immediately change.

Efforts to enforce insurance rate controls may have indirect impact on the growth in healthcare costs but still do not address the underlying cost of care. For now, the onus of control remains with insurers, who will attempt to put pressure of providers to lower costs to a level that approved premium rates can support. There may be more extensive shift in market dynamics in 2014, when the government takes on an even larger proportion of payment responsibility due to expansion in Medicaid, the creation of exchanges, and the availability of subsidies for certain lower-income individuals.

While underlying cost drivers as yet remain relatively unchanged, there are some changes that will have a predictable effect on cost. The most immediate changes, such as increasing dependent coverage up to age 26 and elimination of lifetime and annual benefit maximums, will cause a direct shift in costs from employees to employers. Other options that will be implemented later, such as federally-mandated state health exchange plans, require much deeper analysis before an employer can make an informed decision. Because the practical implementation of this new legislation has not yet been defined, many employers are choosing to delay changes to their benefit plans for future annual benefit cycles, although it is very possible that those changes could be dramatic.

Looking into the future for the “typical family of four” represented by this analysis, the cost implications of reform are unclear. Much depends on the underlying medical cost that is dissected in this report. When it comes to cost control, the status quo is not encouraging. If reform or some other factors can motivate a reduction in the underlying cost of care, it will have important implications for the future cost of care for American families.

http://www.milliman.com/expertise/healthcare/publications/mmi/pdfs/milliman-medical-index-2010.pdf

The Milliman Medical Index (MMI) is especially significant this year because it proves that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is already a miserable failure even before the provisions of the act take place. The MMI for 2010 is $18,074. Let’s look at what that means under the PPACA.

It’s important to understand precisely what the MMI is. It is the average amount that is already being spent on actual health care for a typical family of four enrolled in an employer-sponsored Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) plan. It does not include any of the administrative expenses or profits of the private insurers.

Already there’s a problem. Since the MMI represents the amounts being paid by PPOs, the discounts for network physicians and hospitals and other products and services are already built in. The MMI represents a lower level of spending made possible by contracting payment rates with the physicians and hospitals that are included in the networks. That means that families for whom the spending is at MMI levels have lost their right of free choice of physicians and hospitals unless they are willing and able to pay significant financial penalties for obtaining care outside of the networks. The plans that will be available in the state insurance exchanges will be network-restricted managed care plans – mostly PPOs with some HMOs. Health care reform that takes away choice is not the reform that we wanted.

One of the most important measures in PPACA attempts to address the problem of high costs and the poor coverage of the plans currently available in the individual and small group markets. Individuals and small employers who are having problems finding adequate affordable plans will be able to buy plans in the insurance exchanges that theoretically have the same benefits and cost efficiencies of the large group market currently available to larger employers. If these exchanges actually work as intended, then the MMI will represent the average cost of health care for a family of four enrolled through the exchanges. This assumes that the insurers will cooperate and not continue to use deceptive innovations that have resulted in lower-value products in the individual insurance markets.

Assuming that the exchanges work as intended, keep in mind that the insurers offering individual and small group plans within the exchanges will be required to maintain a medical loss ratio of 80 percent. That is the amount that must be spent on actual health care – the amount that is represented by the MMI, minus the out-of-pocket expenses. They will keep 20 percent for their own administrative costs and profits (or even more if they are successful in their current efforts to shove some of their administrative costs into the medical loss ratio by reclassifying these administrative costs as “health care).

So let’s look at the numbers. The standard Silver plans offered by the exchanges will have an actuarial value of 70 percent. That means that the plans will pay an average of 70 percent of the costs and the other 30 percent will be paid out-of-pocket by individuals and families, partially offset by subsidies for those who qualify. Using the 2010 MMI, the plans will pay for a family of four an average of $12,652 (70 percent of $18,074). The twenty percent for administrative costs and profits will add another $3,163 ($12,652 is 80 percent of the premium) which means that the premium that the insurer will have to charge will be $15,815 ($12,652 plus $3,163). The out-of-pocket portion for the family will be $5,422 (30 percent of $18,074). The the total average cost for the family for both the premium and out-of-pocket expenses combined will be $21,237 ($15,815 plus $5,422).

These are averages. To determine what each family actually would pay is more difficult because of several variables, including sliding scale subsidies for the premiums, sliding scale subsidies for the out-of-pocket expenses, opt-out eligibility based on the level of household income, and out-of-pocket spending, especially for those whose incomes exceed the eligibility thresholds for the subsidies.

Nevertheless, let’s look at a family of four with an income at 400 percent of the federal poverty level – the threshold at which they qualify for neither the subsidies for premiums nor the subsidies for out-of-pocket costs. That income level is $88,200. That family would pay an average of $21,237, or 24 percent of their income, for health care, leaving them $66,963 for all of their other expenses. But since that is average, those with greater health care needs would face even larger out-of-pocket costs, which could be staggering. Even if the plan is promoted as having a stop-loss, private insurers are infamous for leaving patients stuck with charges for non-covered services and out-of-network providers. The bottom line is that PPACA has not ensured that the hard-working American family is protected from financial hardship or even personal bankruptcy should significant medical needs arise.

There are those who say that health care reform is done; we now have PPACA. They say that although it will likely require some adjustments along the way, our task now is to make it work. To those individuals I can only say, step back and look at the confounded mess! It will never insure everyone. It will never make health care affordable for each and every individual and family. It will never control administrative waste as it continues to add on more and more administrative complexity.

We need to keep and build on some of the health system reforms in PPACA, such as the reinforcement of our primary care infrastructure. But we desperately need to dump the sick, fragmented financing system that wastes so much in resources and perpetuates the profound inequities and physical and financial suffering experienced in our system. We need to enact an improved Medicare for all, and do it ASAP!

Washington Post Discussion on America’s New Health Care Law

Kaiser Foundation
May 10, 1010

Jackie Judd, vice president and senior advisor for communications, Kaiser Family Foundation:

“You wrote the… opening, overview chapter (of “Landmark” – a new book by the reporting staff of the Washington Post on the new health care law), and in there you said that while the law is complex, it’s also moderate and incremental, and it’s that very moderation that makes it complicated. What do you mean?”

Alec MacGillis, reporter for the Washington Post:

“Well, it’s something I tried to say often during this whole debate. When people complained about the length of the bill – a two thousand page monstrosity, so complicated – and I wrote a piece back in the Fall that tried to address that argument and pointed out that, you know, if you really wanted a simple bill, then you could just blow this whole thing up.

“And, you know, single payer is very simple. You just, you know – government-run health insurance – get rid of all the health insurance companies, and there are a lot fewer rules to write. That’s simpler, but, obviously, we were not going to do that.

“We were going to take a much more moderate, market-based approach to this. And that means preserving the foundations of our existing system. And that means ending up with something with a law that’s much more complex, because you’re sort of tweaking here and there. You’re not just – it’s not tabula rasa – you’re not starting over.

“But in its main elements it really is a quite moderate and incremental approach. We are preserving the private health insurance system. It’s modeled – no matter what Mitt Romney tells you now – this is modeled on the plan that he passed in 2006 as a Republican governor of Massachusetts; it’s modeled on the Republican alternative to the Clinton plan in the early nineties; it’s modeled on Richard Nixon’s plan in the seventies; it’s modeled on the idea put forward by the Heritage Foundation early last decade, although they’re trying to distance themselves right now from that; but it really is an attempt to build on what we have now, and because you’re doing it that way, you end up with this messy thing. But it’s really not that… but the main elements are not that complicated.

“What we basically have – the best way to think of it is kind of a three legged stool. We are expanding coverage by requiring that everyone get coverage. We’re also telling the insurance companies that they have to provide everyone coverage who comes and asks for it. So they have to take you; you have to get it. That way you get the healthy people into the pool so that they can afford to take the sick people as well. And then to help people afford to get the coverage that they’re required to get, you provide subsidies. But that’s it, and you need all three legs of that stool. That’s why you need have a mandate.”

http://www.c-span.org/Watch/Media/2010/05/10/HP/A/32795/Washington+Post+Discussion+on+Americas+New+Health+Care+Law.aspx

So by pursuing a moderate, market-based, Republican-based approach, the health care law was made much more complicated. But the greater tragedy is that it wasn’t only made more complicated, it failed in our goals of covering everyone with a financing system that we could afford. The complicated reform proposal that is now law is the most expensive model of reform ever devised, not to mention being one of the least effective.

As Alec MacGillis states, “… single payer is very simple. You just, you know – government-run health insurance – get rid of all the health insurance companies, and there are a lot fewer rules to write.”

We still can “blow this whole thing up,” and enact single payer. Not only would there be fewer rules, everyone would have the health care that they need, and we would be able to pay for it. That will never happen under the new law.

Originally published in the Berkshire Eagle.

The passage of the “health insurance” bill has been a huge political success for President Obama and the Democrats and has been compared to the historic passage of Medicare and Social Security. Unfortunately, this bill is not in the same league as those successful programs, which provide medical and financial security to every elderly and disabled American. This is not a “health care” bill; it is a “health insurance” bill, which will hand out $447 billion in taxpayer money to insurance companies as subsidies to purchase inadequate insurance products. And the bill will require millions of Americans to buy these substandard products. The insurance companies are the big winners in this legislation.

We did not need to create this scenario to obtain the useful measures in the bill, like additional funding for community health centers, expansion of Medicaid, reduction of the “donut hole” in prescription drug coverage for Medicare patients, and allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ health insurance plans until age 26. These fixes could have been done separately. Instead, they were inserted into a 2,000-page bill that will further enrich and empower the insurance industry.

Sen. Max Baucus recently praised his aide, Elizabeth Fowler, former vice president of the giant health insurer Wellpoint, for her pivotal role in crafting this legislation. While middle class families were struggling to pay their escalating health insurance premiums, rising deductibles and co-payments, Wellpoint’s profits increased by $2.3 billion in 2009, 91 percent more than the previous year. Not content with this level of profiteering, Wellpoint’s subsidiary, Anthem Blue Cross of California, seeks to increase profits even more by raising its premiums by an astounding 39 percent this year.

Wall Street loves the law. Mutual fund analysts say it is beneficial for health industry stocks, particularly for pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies, because there are no “onerous cost controls.” Health insurance company stocks continue their upward trend, and CEO salaries remain astronomical.

In addition to the bill’s handout to the insurance industry, this legislation has many shortcomings:

* Twenty three million people will remain uninsured, which translates into 23,000 unnecessary deaths every year.

* Millions of middle-income people will have to buy health insurance policies, costing up to 9.5 percent of their income, but covering an average of only 70 percent of their medical expenses, because of high deductibles and co-payments.

* People with employer-based coverage will still not be able to choose their doctors and hospitals, and eventually face steep taxes on their benefits as the cost of insurance grows.

* Health care costs will continue to skyrocket, as we have seen here in Massachusetts after the passage of Chapter 58, which did nothing to contain costs.

* The insurance regulations are riddled with loopholes, as one might expect when insurers helped to craft the bill. For example, older people will be charged three times more than their younger counterparts, and large companies that have more female workers will continue to pay higher rates until 2017.

The American people did not have to be saddled with an expensive package of individual mandates, taxes on workers’ health plans, sweetheart deals with insurers and Big Pharma, and a perpetuation of our current dysfunctional and unsustainable system. President Obama did not seize his chance to inherit the mantles of Presidents Roosevelt and Johnson, with their historic fashioning of legislation for Social Security and Medicare. This bill’s passage reflects political considerations, not sound health care policy.

Sooner or later, our nation will have to adopt a single-payer national insurance program, an improved Medicare for all. We could save $400 billion annually in administrative costs, enough to provide comprehensive coverage for everyone. And only a single-payer system provides the tools for cost control, like bulk purchasing, negotiated fees, global hospital budgeting, and capital planning.

Polls show that almost two-thirds of the American public supports this approach, and a recent survey shows that 59 percent of U.S. doctors do as well. Inevitable price increases by the insurance industry will expand the popularity of the single-payer movement. Ultimately we will have a national health insurance program. Single-payer health care is the only coverage that is universal, comprehensive, and affordable.

Susanne L. King, M.D. is a Lenox, Mass.-based practitioner.

For good behavior

By Rebecca Vesely
ModernHealthcare.com
May 10, 2010

The biggest test of how well behavioral economics can be applied to healthcare is the new federal health reform law, which contains in its more than 1,000 pages many opportunities to nudge people toward better health choices.

“There’s definitely a general fascination about this area,” said Alan Garber, an internal medicine physician and professor of medicine and economics at Stanford University. “In healthcare, for years and years and years there’s been an interest in changing provider and consumer behavior.”

But some worry that behavioral economics could exacerbate health disparities, or inadvertently punish the elderly or people who suffer from chronic diseases.

Meanwhile, some employers are moving full-force to apply behavioral economics to benefit-package design in order to cut healthcare costs.

The most obvious example of behavioral economics in the new healthcare law—and one that drew fire from chronic-disease groups—is a change in employer wellness program incentives. Starting in 2014, employers can offer workers rewards worth up to 30% to 50% of their cost of health coverage for participating in a wellness program and meeting health benchmarks. The law also sets up a 10-state pilot program for similar wellness initiatives on the individual insurance market.

The idea is to create more incentives for workers than is allowed by law today to improve their health, and thus lower medical costs for everyone. The large incentives were pioneered by the grocery chain Safeway.

But the American Diabetes Association, the AARP and other groups have criticized the enhanced incentives, saying that they could penalize those with chronic diseases by forcing them to pay more for healthcare.

“Our position hasn’t changed,” said Colleen Fogarty, spokeswoman for the American Diabetes Association, in an e-mail. “We remain opposed to the language, but it is now the law and we have to work to ensure that these provisions do not have a harmful or unfair impact on people with chronic diseases.”

Proponents of the provision say it is a good example of a component of behavioral economics called “choice architecture.” Essentially, choice architecture is organizing choices in such a way that influences people’s decisions. In theory, enhanced wellness program incentives allow employers to encourage workers to make the healthiest choices.

Choice architecture is sure to be hugely influential in how the government structures new health insurance exchanges, set to go online in 2014, Garber said. While the government won’t be able to pick favorites among insurers participating in the state-run exchanges, it will be able give customers information about the plans, using transparency measures. This has already been done through the Medicare Part D prescription drug program, which lets insurers compete on the Medicare website for business.

“Behavioral incentives can be powerful, but they are unlikely to overcome a powerful financial incentive,” Garber said. So, for some people, an expensive healthcare plan they have to pay for in monthly premiums could be less appealing than a once-a-year financial penalty.

The dangers of financial penalties in healthcare have been shown time and time again when examining prescription drug use. If copayments go up too high, then some people stop filling their prescriptions and wind up sicker.

On the other hand, financial incentives don’t always work to change behavior, as evidenced by the disappointing results in physician pay-for-performance programs.

“We’ll be seeing some interesting experiments unfolding over the next few years,” Garber said. “This will, in the end, play out in the market.”

Express Scripts, a St. Louis-based pharmacy benefit manager, in 2008 launched the Center for Cost-Effective Consumerism and hired experts in behavioral economics—including Garber at Stanford University—to its advisory board.

Lowe’s, the home-improvement retail chain, saved $5.2 million in 2009 by getting employees who take maintenance prescription medications to switch to home pharmacy delivery. It did it using behavioral economics. Bob Ihrie, senior vice president of employee rewards and services at Lowe’s Cos., describes the method as “carrot, carrot, stick, big stick.”

Lowe’s started by educating its 225,000 employees nationwide about home drug delivery, and the cost savings involved. After the third month, if workers hadn’t switched, they are notified at the pharmacy when picking up their prescription and told that if they don’t switch to home delivery, they would start paying the full price of the prescription. The next month, if they hadn’t signed on for home delivery, they paid full price at the in-store pharmacy.

Another carrot followed. Last September, about 22,000 employees who were not signed on for home delivery received a postcard from Lowe’s informing them that if they select home delivery, their prescription drug would be free the first month. About 10% responded to this incentive, Ihrie said.

At the end of 2009, nearly 38,000 workers had switched to home delivery, up about 160% from 14,500 in 2008. Then came the big stick. Starting in January, employees eligible for home delivery but not yet enrolled pay twice the retail price for the drug in store. “We are still waiting to see the outcome of this,” Ihrie said.

The program has worked by breaking the cycle of procrastination, Ihrie said. “We give them choices upfront and then gradually move them along a path that is more mandatory,” he said. Conducted in partnership with Express Scripts, the program cuts waste out of the system without affecting clinical outcomes, Ihrie said.

Several high-ranking officials in the Obama administration are strong proponents of behavioral economics. Cass Sunstein, co-author of Nudge, is now the administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Peter Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, has spoken about the promise of behavioral economics to control costs.

http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20100510/INFO/100509942#

“Behavioral economics” and “choice architecture” are being used to shift health care spending from the healthy to the sick by directly or indirectly assessing financial penalties against those who are unfortunate enough to have greater health care needs. This is strictly another scheme by pro-market enthusiasts who support the flawed concept of consumer-directed health care.

As an example of the flaws, a scheme that requires patients to pay twice the usual retail price for a drug is a perverse scheme indeed. Another example is Safeway’s fraudulent claims of savings from their wellness programs when their savings were really only from shifting to high-deductible health plans.

Instead of jerking patients around with perverse market tools, we need to switch to a public system that simply helps patients get the care that they need – an improved Medicare for everyone.

Socialized healthcare: The ‘untouchable’ of UK politics

By Paul Armstrong
CNN
May 5, 2010

After weeks of feverish election campaigning, Britain’s political parties have fought over every issue, from the economy to the country’s nuclear deterrent, with one exception: the National Health Service.

To many Republican politicians in the United States, a publicly-funded national health system like the NHS is the embodiment of austere, Soviet-era style medical care, but in the UK it is viewed as sacrosanct.

Centrally-funded through taxation, pressure to respond to growing demand has seen record levels of investment in the past decade.

Ruth Thorlby, a research fellow at the King’s Fund, told CNN that all the major parties appreciate the NHS strikes an emotive chord with the public and that it is a price worth paying. She said: “We have this extraordinary political consensus now that the funding structure of the NHS is sound.”

Conservative leader David Cameron seems as committed to the NHS as Labour, despite his party’s ideological disposition to the private sector.

He recently acknowledged its value on his party’s Web site. “Millions of people are grateful for the care they have received from the NHS — including my own family,” he said.

“One of the wonderful things about living in this country is that the moment you’re injured or fall ill — no matter who you are, where you are from, or how much money you’ve got — you know that the NHS will look after you.”

Cameron’s words were reinforced by the party’s election manifesto, in which it calls itself “the party of the NHS” and pledges “never to change at the idea at its heart that healthcare in this country is free at the point of use and available to everyone based on need and not ability to pay.”

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/04/23/britain.nhs/?hpt=C2

The United Kingdom has the ultimate system of socialized medicine: a government-owned and government-administered National Health Service (NHS). Though their system is much less expensive than ours in the United States, it is viewed as sacrosanct by the British citizens.

The system was launched in 1948 by a left-wing Labour government, but its appeal has become so universal that the right-wing Conservative party now claims to be “the party of the NHS.”

In the United States we have chosen a right-wing solution over which we remain politically divided because of its serious flaws. Since we spend far more on health care than any other nation, we should be able to use those funds to craft a system with such intense universal support that we would consider ours sacrosanct as well.

Of course we can. Try to convince senior Tea Baggers to relinquish their Medicare, even though it is a government program. Medicare is a right that they have earned merely by being American taxpayers. Just imagine improving Medicare and providing it to everyone. After people experienced the benefits of an improved Medicare for all, can you imagine a major political party campaigning against the program? In fact, it’s the Republicans who are now expressing outrage over the fact that PPACA includes some reductions in Medicare funding.

Now that the Republican party seems to be presenting itself as “the party of Medicare,” wouldn’t you think that the Democrats would want to trump them by becoming “the party of an improved Medicare for all”?

This entry is from Dr. McCanne’s Quote of the Day, a daily health policy update on the single-payer health care reform movement. The QotD is archived on PNHP’s website.

Documents reveal AT&T, Verizon, others, thought about dropping employer-sponsored benefits

By Shawn Tully

Fortune
May 6, 2010

The great mystery surrounding the historic health care bill is how the corporations that provide coverage for most Americans — coverage they know and prize — will react to the new law’s radically different regime of subsidies, penalties, and taxes. Now, we’re getting a remarkable inside look at the options AT&T, Deere, and other big companies are weighing to deal with the new legislation.

Internal documents recently reviewed by Fortune, originally requested by Congress, show what the bill’s critics predicted, and what its champions dreaded: many large companies are examining a course that was heretofore unthinkable, dumping the health care coverage they provide to their workers in exchange for paying penalty fees to the government.

That would dismantle the employer-based system that has reigned since World War II. It would also seem to contradict President Obama’s statements that Americans who like their current plans could keep them.

AT&T produced a PowerPoint slide entitled “Medical Cost Versus No Coverage Penalty.”

A document prepared for Verizon by consulting firm Hewitt Resources stated, “Even though the proposed assessments [on companies that do not provide health care] are material, they are modest when compared to the average cost of health care,” and that to avoid costs and regulations, “employers may consider exiting the health care market and send employees to the Exchanges.”

Kenneth Huhn, vice president of labor relations at Deere, said in an internal email that his company should look at the alternatives to providing health benefits, which “would amount to denying coverage and just paying the penalty,” and that he felt he already had the ability to make this change under his company’s labor agreement.

Caterpillar felt it would have to give “serious consideration” to the penalty option.

AT&T revealed that it spends $2.4 billion a year on coverage for its almost 300,000 active employees, a number that would fall to $600 million if AT&T stopped providing health care coverage and paid the penalty option instead.

(Caterpillar) could reduce its bill by over 70%, by Fortune’s estimate.

It’s these analyses — which show it’s a lot cheaper to “pay” than to “play” — that threaten to overthrow the traditional architecture of health care.

The full article contains links to documents supporting some of these assertions:

http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/05/news/companies/dropping_benefits.fortune/index.htm

Yesterday’s qotd message described measures in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) that would motivate employers to downgrade their health benefit programs to an actuarial value of 60 percent (the employees would pay an average of 40 percent of actual health care costs, in addition to their share of the insurance premium). Today’s message reveals that major employers are considering the option of dumping their health benefit programs altogether.

The government subsidies for plans purchased in the state exchanges are large enough to shift a major portion of the costs of the health benefit programs from the employers/employees to the taxpayers. Further, the subsidized Silver-tier plans in the exchanges provide an actuarial value of 70 percent, resulting in greater benefits than the downgraded plans would have, at a net lower cost for the employers.

Unfortunately, neither is a great deal for the employees and their families. Employer-sponsored plans currently have a typical actuarial value of 80 percent, and sometimes as high as 90 or 95 percent. PPACA exchange plans will shift more costs to those who need health care by reducing the effective actuarial value to 70 percent for those with incomes over 250% FPL (federal poverty level), and those with incomes over 400% FPL would have no out-of-pocket limits to protect them.

Regardless, the complex structure of PPACA will result in worse coverage for employees than many of them currently have. This was the result of Congress and the Obama administration insisting that reform be built on our existing employer-based system, while facing the complex logistical problems of balancing the flow of money between individuals, employers, the government, the insurers, and the providers of health care.

It would have been far simpler, less expensive, and much more effective to establish a single financing pool, equitably-funded through the tax system, while providing significantly greater value in health care purchasing for all of us through a publicly-owned, publicly-administered, beneficent monopsony – an improved Medicare for all. We can still do it.