Can you answer this question?
Why is healthcare in the US so expensive? There are a lot of symptoms, but do you know the root cause?
Can I give you a hint? Last year, a large health insurer returned to your patients $1.5 Billion in premiums because their second-quarter profit jumped to $6.6 billion. This remarkable jump in earnings was twice their earnings in the same period last year. A nice gesture on their part to compensate patients for delaying elective and nonemergency procedures.
But they paid their investors $10.5 Billion in dividends, increasing about 17.8% over the prior year.
Now I’m not picking on anyone in particular. I’m just showing you why healthcare is so expensive. Insurance companies’ primary objective is to make their investors wealthier, not reduce healthcare costs for their customers (your patients). And you also have to remember that if they did reduce healthcare costs, they would lose profits. Let’s say they reduced the cost of healthcare by 50%. Their premiums/revenues would also go down by 50%. As many businesses in the pandemic have learned, having suffered a 50% reduction in revenues, it’s nearly impossible to turn a profit.
What do you think would happen if this large health insurer paid a rebate to their customers (your patients) of $10½ billion and gave $1½ billion in dividends to their investors? Many would cite that corporations cannot do that because they have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder value, but this is not true. They are required to do what they believe is in the best interest of the corporation. Unfortunately, the best interest of an insurance company and your patients’ best interests are not aligned.
Since reimbursing patients and cutting healthcare costs is not likely to happen, why don’t we do this? We get primary care physicians to join together and invest in their patients’ medical /financial outcomes. That is, have primary care physicians take some limited financial responsibility for the economic consequences of their patient’s healthcare. How? The answer may surprise you, but we have a plan. A proven strategy to reduce healthcare costs by $2 Trillion annually and makes primary care physicians managers of their patient’s healthcare.
That way, physicians are not only planted firmly on the side of the best medical outcome; they are invested in the best medical outcome at the best price. If the physician does an excellent job, he or she earns some dividends from the program. If they don’t do a good job, they lose money, just like managers in most businesses. The difference here is that the patient’s best interests are managed by the physicians who care for them. Learn more about this exciting opportunity.
Answer this One-Question Survey and I will email you my e-book free. I provide an in-depth analysis of the problem and solution. I hope you will want to join us in taking control of America’s healthcare system after reading it!
