March 3rd, 2008
Prevention killing the health care system
In all the debates about health care inflation the core problem is not being addressed.
Ben Franklin said an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and catching disease before it spreads does cut the cost of treatment.
The problem is the cost of prevention keeps rising.
Take my own case. I’m pretty healthy, knock on wood. But I’m spending $70/month in co-pays for the drugs needed to keep my family history of cholesterol and high blood pressure from doing to me what it did to my dad.
(The picture of my dad above was taken when he was aged 65. He was a physically beautiful man. I have no excuse.)
In fact, I should be paying more. I switched to a generic statin, on my own, although I was getting more benefit from the name brand drug.
That $70/month is just the tip of the iceberg. I also pay for twice-yearly doctor visits and blood tests, just to maintain. I pay just 20% of the cost of all this because I have the “good insurance.” Many people don’t, fewer all the time.
Now my dad had his first heart attack when he was 5 years younger than I am now. I was there when it happened, although neither of us knew this until years later, when he went in for a check-up.
His “cure” for the sudden pain was to stop at one of those old Dairy Barn stores and down a quart of milk. He thought he had an ulcer.
In the 30 years which followed he had many heart scares. Most notably his aorta was replaced, as an aneuryism was caught in time.
If my grandfather had the same genetic markers as my dad, he probably would have just died young. My dad’s operations cost tens of thousands of dollars, and he lived to be nearly 79.
But the cost of my own care, which has been ongoing since 2000, is getting up there. Figure an average of $60 in co-pays per month for 8 years, add in twice-yearly tests at $50 each, and you’re talking about $33,000 when you figure I’m just paying 20%.
That’s the cost of preventing one man’s heart problems. Janet Dillione of Siemens Medical estimates one-fourth of our nation’s total health budget goes to the maintenance of diabetes patients. My best friend is diabetic and I believe her.
All this hasn’t just extended our life spans. It has enabled us to become very lazy about our health. Some of that diabetes bill is preventable, caused by weight and bad eating habits. But I exercise, and I eat right, and I watch my weight. The only way to cut my bill is through generics.
AdvaMed is doing heavy pushback against charges that medical technology is making the current health care system unaffordable. They’re right, in that it’s not the cost of devices per se which is causing the problem.
It’s the cost of prevention. And cutting that cost, from my perspective, looks next to impossible.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 03/03/08
