The Costs of Too Much Medical Care

We often hear about the problems caused by lack of access to medical care by large numbers of people. The opposite is also often true – The Office of the Inspector General for Health and Human Services estimates that about 180,000 elderly patients are killed by unnecessary medical tests and procedures each year. This is only a small % of the total number of Americans killed by our medical system – that number has been estimated at between 210,000 and 440,000 people killed per year by incorrect hospital procedures.

 

These numbers would make medical errors the third-leading cause of death in America, behind heart disease, which is the first, and cancer, which is second.

 

A new article in Time Magazine called The Cost of Chasing Cancer in the March 10 edition, reviews these statistics.  The author goes on to say that in addition to this high number of needless deaths there is also major emotional trauma caused to people by unnecessary screenings and diagnostic procedures. Many people with harmless growths in their body become full of paralyzing fear when these show up on whole body CT scans.   This fear drives many people to undergo painful, expensive procedures that have no value, and can cause other issues.

 

All of these unnecessary procedures are driven by two main factors – doctors and hospitals trying to avoid malpractice suits, and hospital administrators and stockholders trying to maximize their profits by doing as many expensive diagnostic procedures as possible.  The upshot of this is that one third of all health care dollars in the USA go to pay for unnecessary tests, medicines, procedures and administrative costs for these.

 

That is staggering, isn’t it?  According to numbers from the Centers for Disease Control U.S. health care spending totaled about $2.8 trillion in 2012, or $8,915 per person.  One third of that, which went for needless spending, would total almost a trillion dollars, or close to $3000 per person.

 

Imagine what better use that money could go to!  What if it was spend on preventive medicine- including acupuncture, nutrition for children and elderly, chiropractic, health education and such. These would ultimately drive down the crazy high costs of health care because less people would get sick, and more would learn how to take care of themselves and their families with much less expensive medical care. May not be good for short term profits of hospitals but would greatly improve the economy throughout.

 

A lot to think about. How do you see it? Please post your thoughts below.