Re: [Re: GEN: Can you envision the existence of a solitary insurer?]
From: art fougner, md (evsono@pipeline.com)
Wed Dec 16 11:16:58 1998
Organized Medicine? isn't that an oxymoron?????
Art
Happy Holidays
At Wed, 16 Dec 1998, Robert J. Woolley wrote:
>
>In message <22954965.3676b2bf@aol.com> writes:
>> In a message dated 12/14/98 4:26:28 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>> wooll005@tc.umn.edu writes:
>>
>> << Is there any reason our patients *shouldn't* resent us if we continue to
>> act to keep medical prices artificially high, at their expense? >>
>>
>> This makes an assumption that medical prices are "artificially high".
>
>I mean higher than unmanipulated market forces would lead to. The medical
>profession has manipulated the market the same way OPEC does: restrict the
>supply to keep prices high. (Limit the number of seats in medical schools,
>require a difficult-to-obtain license to practice medicine, etc.)
>
> By
>> medical prices I don't know what you are including. However, the only
>> component of medical prices over which physicians have control of the actual
>> price, is our fees. We do control the numbers of other services which we
>> order; but not the actual individual test price, which is set by others.
>> Physician fees have been growing at single digits, most recently 4 %.
>
>The total cost of physician services almost exactly 3-fold from 1970 to 1980
>($13.6 billion to $41.9 billion), and tripled again over the next 10 years (to
>$128.8 billion). There was an 11% increase from 1989-1990, and another 10.2%
>from 1990-1991. This is the last year for which I have easily-available data
>(since I'm looking at a 1994 source). If you are correct that it's now 4% per
>year, that's still more than the CPI increase, and such a recent phenomenon that
>it's hardly a point of professional pride.
>
> Drug
>> prices, on the other hand, are growing at rates of 14 to 18 % over the last 5
>> years. Hospital prices are growing at rates of 6 to 12 percent. These
>> statistics are from NIH, consumer price indexes and medical economics
>> magazine.
>
>It is true that every major sector of health care has had costs increase faster
>than inflation. I'm not sure how that answers my point that our incomes are
>higher because of highly successful manipulation of the market by organized
>medicine in this century.
>
>--
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Bob Woolley
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>St. Paul, Minnesota
>
>"Weapons defend the lives of those who wish to live peacefully,
>and they also on many occasions kill men, not because of any
>wickedness inherent in them but because those who wield them do
>so in an evil way."
>
> -- Giovanni Boccaccio
> "The Decameron"
> c. 1350
>
--
art fougner, md
SonoScan/Genetic Sciences
forest hills, ny
evsono@pipeline.com
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