Shadowfax on HSAs
KevinMD (love to love his blog, love to hate his health policy!) has never really explained himself as to why he agrees with John Stossel that HSAs will make any type of dent in our health care costs, and Shadowfax takes them both to task for it.
The acutely ill do not make health care decisions and are not responsive to costs. I repeat.
The acutely ill do not make health care decisions and are not responsive to costs.
Just like Shadowfax says–the guy possibly having a heart attack, or the incredibly sick patient with pneumonia who’s going to the ICU is not in any position (or state of mind) to determine if he should get the generic or the brand name antibiotic; if he should have a foley catheter placed; if he should have heart surgery or just stenting.
And one other point to add to Shadowfax: The Most Important Health Care Graph:
Us fairly healthy folk cost next to nothing for the health care system. Deciding whether we need a chest xray or not is like taking a grain of sand from the beach.
Thank you! Finally someone who makes sense on HSAs. That’s always the flaw I’ve seen with HSAs too.
This argument is misplaced.
What many see as a ‘problem’ in healthcare is that routine care is confused with extraordinary care. What an HSA does is to promote the distinction.
Think of the HSA as promoting insurance to cover acute illness and other unusual health expense but not the routine day to day medical expense. That is the proper role of insurance: to handle those things that are out of the ordinary in our lives.
The HSA idea does have support for the routine health expense in the form of tax breaks and personal budgeting incentives.
With an HSA, if your health risks are low and you can indeed reduce your health cost needs, you have an opportunity and an incentive to save funds for your later years when your health costs, even for routine stuff, are likely to grow.
Thanks for the imformations.
[...] by the way, I’ve never gotten an answer from you HSA supporters as to how in the hell they’re going to make a dent in our health care [...]