Health Policy by the Detroit News

Again, the Detroit News leads with health coverage. The editorial notes:

Last year General Motors' 119,000 hourly workers paid only 7 percent of their health care costs, compared with about 27 percent for the company's 38,000 salaried workers. Even at 27 percent, such a system virtually guarantees gross abuse of health care services by providing virtually no incentive to economize on the use of drugs, physician services and hospitals.

This is the first quantitative description of how management's free shot at the salaried health care system has shifted costs to patients. It would be interesting to know the per capita costs, comparing salaried to hourly, to see whether there is any impact on cost. From a game theory perspective, deductables may encourage increased utilization, since increases reduce the fraction paid by the patient.

The last sentence denounces patients who go to the doctor when they think they are sick, fill the prescriptions written by those doctors, and go to the hospital when their doctor puts them there.


http://www.detnews.com/2005/editorial/0504/20/A13-155821.htm


Wednesday, April 20, 2005
UAW plays deadly health care game