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Re: Bad news from the BMJFrom: Joanne Bulley, MD (islesannie@gmail.com)Fri Jul 25 06:24:26 2008
I can access the first 150 words: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/337/jul21_1/a889 Published 21 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a889 Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a889 News Health care in US ranks lowest among developed countries One of my personal complaints on our system - where is all that money going? To the CEOs of pharmaceutical and insurance companies. Our local paper [ublished an article re: "Are executives paid too much?" the "majority of top executives were compensated between $2million and $15 million in 2007. The top 5 in "healthcare": Mike White @ Abbot Laboratories $29.4M William Weldon @ Johnson & Johnson $25.1M Fred Hassan @ Schering-Plough $24.7M H Edward Hanway @ CIGNA Corp $22.7M Ronald Williams @ Aetna Inc $18.2M The BMJ article (of what I can see) mentions that the US spends more than twice as much. But how much of that expense trickles down to the patient? I recall many many moons ago when most of our insurers were not-for-profit, the statistic was than 85-95 cents of each premium dollar went to patient care. At that time, the for-profit companies tried to keep their "losses" (read money spent on patient care) to 60 cents of the premium dollar. The most recent number I heard was they want to keep the "losses" (spending on patients) to no more than 50 cents of each premium dollar. Fitting that into the article: I don't think there are anymore non-profit insurers in the US anymore. And if we went back to 85% of the health care premiums going straight to patient care, that would cut our current expense by close to half and we wouldn't be spending twice as much. My opinion (should be obvious by now) is that we spend TONS of money - making the top dogs rich and not spending it on patients. How much care could we "purchase" if each of those executives gave up HALF their compensation? They would still have way more money to live on than any of us really needs! With current reimbursements, the only way I can give my employees "living wages" and pay raises, is to decrease my pay. Should be interesting to see others comments! Joanne
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-- Joanne Bulley, MD solo gyn Keene, NH
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