Half of all Americans are Diabetics?

Diabetes is a serious disease. And one article projects that half of all Americans could be diabetics by 2020! Increased medical costs - a diabetic spends roughly 3 times what a similar healthy person does on medical expenses. More than half of diagnosed diabetics today are on Medicare or Medicaid. The culprit - obesity. The solution weight management and exercise. The reality, an already burdened Medicare system will swamped.

Medicare and available doctors

Here's the problem. To control Medicare costs, the government reduces the reimbursement to physicians. How many small businesses would continue to sell a product that wasn't profitable? Few if any. What a choice. Suppose you could deliver the same service to two different people, one pays $100 and the other pays $23. It's a no brainer. Check out one physicians frustration.

Pharmaceuticals

An announcement this week of long available prescription drug that has been pulled off the market - Darvon/Darvocet got me thinking about the cost of prescription drugs. A little research and I found that 90% of elderly Americans and 58% of adults rely on prescription drugs for some sort of malady. I don't know about you but that's astonishing to me from a health perspective and even more astonishing from a cost perspective. I can tell you that the number one factor in health insurance costs are the costs of prescription drugs. Most companies offering individual health insurance will increase rates on an applicant for any prescription drug currently being taken on a regular basis. Taking three or more prescription drugs and it may be difficult to obtain coverage. I had a client that was a Cancer survivor for over 5 years. When applying for health insurance coverage the insurance carriers ignored the Cancer when considering premium increase yet almost doubled the premium for the combination of high blood pressure (HBP), high cholesterol and anti-depressant meds.

Travel abroad for reduced cost medical treatment

An interesting concept, travel abroad for medical treatment. The passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act addresses access, but most health care economists agree that medical expenses will continue to rise. Medical travel, which has received increased interest from U.S. residents and employers, is now a highly attractive and viable option for businesses and their employees that may help consumers deal with the increased load that they must bear. Satori World Medical is one of several companies offering turnkey travel and medical treatment for a variety of conditions. Procedures like Gastric Bypass, coronary artery bypass, some back/disc/spine procedures and others may be 40-80% less overseas. Not for everyone, but interesting nonetheless.

Health Insurance costs rising again

Employees to see higher deductibles and will take on more of the cost of employer sponsored health care. One to two percent is attributable to reform mandates from PPACA.

Can Health Care reform be repealed?

According to this article no. The president is unlikely to sign legislation that would overturn the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. And much of the legislation won't be in effect until 2014. The biggest challenge is that the PPACA was a framework, the rest of the structure will be implemented by bureaucrats in the various agencies. One of the big discussion points is the mandate that insurance carriers return 80 - 85% of revenue collected from premiums to policy holders for claims and benefits. The discussion now is what goes into this 85%. Customer service? Agent commissions? Advertising? Stay tuned.

Medicare

People with Medicare have choices and they can make plan changes for 2011. The change period, called AEP (Annual Election Period) runs from November 15 - December 31, 2010. People that are turning 65 can elect their Medicare choice anytime in the 3 months prior to, 3 months after or the month they turn 65. The best site for information is the Medicare.gov website.