Why Do Other Rich Nations Spend So Much Less on Healthcare?
By Victor R. Fuchs
The Atlantic, July 23, 2014
Despite the news last week that America’s healthcare spending will not be rising at the sky-high rate that was once predicted, the fact remains that the U.S. far outspends its peer nations when it comes to healthcare costs per capita. This year the United States will spend almost 18 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) on healthcare.
Why does the United States spend so much more?
The biggest reason is that U.S. healthcare delivers a more expensive mix of services. For example, a much larger proportion of physician visits in the U.S. are to specialists who get higher fees and usually order more high-tech diagnostic and therapeutic procedures than primary care physicians.
A second important reason for higher healthcare spending in the U.S. is higher prices for inputs such as drugs and the services of specialist physicians. The prices of branded prescription drugs in the U.S. are, on average, about double those in other countries. The fees of specialist physicians are typically two to three times as high as in other countries. The lower prices and fees abroad are achieved by negotiation and controls by governments who typically pay for about 75 percent of all medical care. Government in the U.S. pays about 50 percent, which would still confer considerable bargaining power, but the government is kept from exerting it by legislation and a Congress sensitive to interest-group lobbying.
The third and last important reason for higher spending in the U.S. is high administrative costs of insurance. Many of our peer countries have lower administrative costs through more coordination, standardization, and in some countries a single national system or several regional healthcare-insurance systems, even when the provision of care is primarily a private-sector responsibility.
The complexity of private-sector insurance is not in the public interest. Each company offers many plans that differ in coverage, deductibles, co-pays, premiums, and other features that make it difficult for buyers to compare the prices of different policies.
If we turn the question around and ask why healthcare costs so much less in other high-income countries, the answer nearly always points to a larger, stronger role for government. Governments usually eliminate much of the high administrative costs of insurance, obtain lower prices for inputs, and influence the mix of healthcare outputs by arranging for large supplies of primary-care physicians and hospital beds while keeping tight control on the number of specialist physicians and expensive technology. In the United States, the political system creates many “choke points” for diverse interest groups to block or modify government’s role in these areas.
For those who would like to limit government control, there is an alternative route to more efficient healthcare through “managed competition,” proposed by Alain Enthoven, a Stanford University Business School Professor, more than 25 years ago. It is based on integrated group practice, which brings the insurance function, physicians, hospital, drugs, and other elements of care into a single organization that takes responsibility for the health of a defined population for an annual risk-adjusted per capita payment. Examples include the Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound in Seattle and the Kaiser Permanente organizations in California.
With regard to healthcare, the United States is at a crossroads. Whether the Affordable Care Act will significantly control costs is uncertain; its main thrust is to reduce the number of uninsured. The alternatives seem to be a larger role for government or a larger role for managed competition in the private sector. Even if the latter route is pursued, government is the only logical choice if the country wants to have universal coverage. There are two necessary and sufficient conditions to cover everyone for health insurance: Subsidies for the poor and the sick and compulsory participation by everyone. Only government can create those conditions.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/why-do-other-rich-nations-spend-so-much-less-on-healthcare/374576/
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Comment:
By Don McCanne, MD
Highly respected Stanford economist Victor Fuchs has long supported private solutions to universal coverage, such as Alain Enthoven’s managed competition. Although there is much to be said for establishing integrated health care delivery systems within the community, the logistics of providing all care through competing integrated delivery systems have proven to be insurmountable, as witness the managed care revolution that reduced this concept to competition between inefficient, expensive and intrusive third party insurer money managers.
Fuchs now notes that “the complexity of private-sector insurance is not in the public interest.” He acknowledges the crucial role of government in other nations. He states that we are now at a crossroads between “a larger role for government or a larger role for managed competition in the private sector.” Even if private managed competition is selected, “government is the only logical choice if the country wants to have universal coverage.”
But look at the government requirement he would impose if the private managed competition option were selected: “Subsidies for the poor and the sick and compulsory participation by everyone.” We already have that in the Affordable Care Act, and yet we will be left with 31 million uninsured.
At least Fuchs is right when he says, “Only government can create those conditions.” But the vehicle has to be functional. That’s why we need to do it through a single payer national health program. We can still have our integrated health care delivery systems that Arnold Relman also supported, but in addition we will need the other components that make the system work efficiently for all of us.