The Healthcare Financing House of Cards Is About to Collapse

I was listening to the radio this very morning and suddenly felt very vindicated. Let me explain.

Beginning ten years ago, in 1997, I looked at the state of things in healthcare, particularly healthcare financing, and realized that the whole thing was a house of cards, and not a particularly well-built one at that. I've touched on this in previous posts, but in a nutshell, it goes like this:

Insurance premiums go up and up while covered services get fewer and those covered are restricted through "prior authorization" and the like. Meanwhile, patient copays climb higher and higher, while doctor and hospital payments slide lower and lower. Nobody knows the true cost of a service, not even the doctor providing it, because he's had to adjust his fee so much to make up for what the insurance companies aren't paying him that he no longer recalls what the real cost is anymore. Furthermore, government oversight and insurance company meddling increase the hassle factor of medical practice more and more each year, month, and day. Inflation chops away at doctor and hospital profit from the opposite end from the payors at an ever escalating rate. The liberal elite, controlling the media and thus controlling the argument, proclaims healthcare a "right" (which really it isn't) and leads society into believing more and more that they can have all the healthcare they want, the cost be damned. (Of course what is wanted is not counseling on lifestyle changes to prevent or control chronic disease, or medications to thwart the devastation of diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension, and the like, but rather cosmetic surgery, Botox for everything, laser facial peels, and other crap that won't add a day to their lives.) Swimming over all of this are the sharks, the malpractice lawyer-jackals, who ravenously feed parasitically off of every part of the healthcare systemwithout any restraint . Looked at globally, the entire thing is unsustainable, and headed for collapse, primarily because the wrong component of the system is in control.

So, ten years ago, I began to predict that ten years hence, in 2007, an event would occur that would make it obvious that the wheels were coming off the cart, that the seams were coming apart, that the house of cards was coming down.

Six years ago I refined my prediction -- I named the event . I predicted that the event would be when a major national employer and its labor union would break off talks on renegotiation of the labor contract, and the union would go on strike, and the camel-back-breaking straw would be the health benefit part of the contract.

About two and a half years ago, I learned that there was a major national employer whose union labor contract would be up for renegotiation in 2007. Even better, this employer was in trouble and had already sought and obtained health-benefit-related concessions from the union. So I modified my prediction even more.

I predicted that the event would be when the union went on strike against General Motors because they could not come to terms on healthcare, the union wanting more, and the employer offering less.

So imagine my lack of surprise when I heard on the radio this morning that the contract between GM and its union had officially terminated last Friday at midnight (three days ago), and it was being continued hour by hour while negotiations continue. And the sticking point?

Healthcare benefits.

I feel vindicated. And a little scared.

Why scared? Because the house of cards is coming down, and with the way things are in this country right now, the obvious solution to the coming crisis will be thought to be the same one that was created for the Medicare drug problem -- let the government take over!

Only that will be the wrong solution. For that will take the control of the system out of the hands of the insurance companies, who have control now, and put it in the hands of the government. Control will go from one set of wrong hands to another set of wrong hands. And those who have the right hands will continue to suffer.

Whose hands are the right hands? My answer might surprise you. It's the patients.