Medical Miracles More Likely, But At What Cost?

Main Category: Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Also Included In: Public Health;  Palliative Care / Hospice Care
Article Date: 10 Mar 2010 - 4:00 PDT

Current ratings for:
'Medical Miracles More Likely, But At What Cost?'

Patient / Public:not yet rated

Healthcare Prof:5 stars

5 (1 votes)

The Fiscal Times reports on medical miracles and their place in the national health care reform debate with a likely subheading: high health care costs.

"The idea of foregoing heroic efforts and new technologies to save dying patients is anathema for most Americans. It contradicts a core national conviction that innovation coupled with a can-do attitude can accomplish virtually anything" but "(h)ealth care in America will cost nearly $2.7 trillion this year - $9,000 per person - a $200 billion increase over last year. $763 billion of this is for Medicare and Medicaid alone, which is over eight times the federal spending for education." Care that makes people as healthy as possible for as long as possible is the aim of the system, but "this experiment has been conducted at an extraordinary cost given the increasingly marginal benefits in terms of outcomes and quality of life as death approaches. ... Finding the right balance between too much and too little care is excruciating and highly personal for physicians, patients and families - which is one reason that we don't talk about this at a national level. This reluctance is mirrored by a political reluctance to have a meaningful debate among our elected leaders" (Duncan, 3/9).

Business Week/MSN reports, in a first-person article, on the cost to one spouse after her husband's battle with cancer: $618,000. "Health care costs represent 17% of today's U.S. gross domestic product. Medicare devotes about a quarter of its budget to care in the last year of life, according to the policy journal Health Affairs. Yet as I fought to buy my husband more time (during his battle with kidney cancer), it didn't matter to me that the hospital charged more than 12 times what Medicare then reimbursed for a chest scan. ... And I didn't have time to be thankful that the insurers negotiated the rates with the hospital so neither my employers nor I actually paid the difference between the sticker and discounted prices." A stack of paperwork also revealed inaccuracies in how billers and payers dealt with costs (Bennett, 3/9).

This information was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at kaiserhealthnews.org.

© Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.



Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
Visit our medicare / medicaid / schip section for the latest news on this subject.
There are no references listed for this article.
Please use one of the following formats to cite this article in your essay, paper or report:

MLA
Kaiser. "Medical Miracles More Likely, But At What Cost?." Medical News Today. MediLexicon, Intl., 10 Mar. 2010. Web.
26 May. 2012. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/181774.php>
APA
Kaiser. (2010, March 10). "Medical Miracles More Likely, But At What Cost?." Medical News Today. Retrieved from
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/181774.php.

Please note: If no author information is provided, the source is cited instead.


Add Your Opinion On This Article

'Medical Miracles More Likely, But At What Cost?'

Please note that we publish your name, but we do not publish your email address. It is only used to let you know when your message is published. We do not use it for any other purpose. Please see our privacy policy for more information.

If you write about specific medications or operations, please do not name health care professionals by name.

All opinions are moderated before being included (to stop spam)

Your Name:*
E-mail Address:*
Your Opinion Title:*
Opinion:*
This is to help prevent SPAM submissions. Please enter the words exactly as they appear, including capital letters and punctuation.*

* Fields marked with a * need to be filled in before you hit the submit button.

Contact Our News Editors

For any corrections of factual information, or to contact the editors please use our feedback form.

Please send any medical news or health news press releases to:

Note: Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional. For more information, please read our terms and conditions.


Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP

What is Medicare / Medicaid?

Medicaid and Medicare are two governmental programs that provide medical and health-related services to specific groups of people in the United States. Although the two programs are very different, they are both managed by the Centers for Medicare and... Read more...

Most Popular Articles



Follow Our Medicare News On Twitter

Follow Us On Twitter
Get the latest news for this category delivered straight to your Twitter account. Simply visit our Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP Twitter account and select the 'follow' option.



View list of all 'What Is...' articles »