Re: World-renowned heart surgeon: Health care needs improvement

royls_at_telus.net
Date: 02/03/05 

Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2005 18:31:12 GMT

On 2 Feb 2005 22:07:08 -0800, "raylopez99" <raylopez99@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>After careful analysis of this thread, I have to say I agree with Bob.
>
>Some points:
>
>1) I don't believe that 80% of healthcare costs come in the final few
>months of life. Need a citation.

The figures I remember were for Canada, and not that extreme: 40% of
all public expenditures on medical care (these are "medically
necessary" expenses, and do not include things like private spending
on cosmetic surgery, most prescription drugs used outside hospitals,
etc.) were devoted to the final hospital stay ending in death, and 50%
to the last 3 months of life. Sorry, I don't have a cite.

>4) I think the cost of healthcare needs to be borne more by the user
>rather than society or the employer, to prevent a free-ridership
>problem.

There are clearly some perverse incentives in play.

-- Roy L

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