How the Changing Healthcare Environment Will Impact Baby Boomers
The U.S. healthcare system is currently the last remaining privatized healthcare system in the industrialized world. There is a strong possibility this will change over the course of the next 5 to 10 years. The new healthcare plan passed by the Obama administration is the first of many stages that could, over the next decade, lead us down the road to socialized or universal medicine. This is a similar path that many European countries followed along the way to creating a complete socialized medical system. Many of these countries plans were initially met with strong public resistance but the end result was a socialized medical system.
This may not be as drastic a transition for the U.S. as one might think; we already have active programs of socialized or universal medicine, Medicare, Medicaid, and the U.S. military’s Tricare. The U.S. Medicare system was the basis for the country of Taiwan’s recently redesigned socialized medicine health care system. Over the next decade U.S. citizens could see incremental legislative corrections to the new health care reform bill. These corrections could also result in a further expansion of Medicaid and Medicare and possibly the combining of both programs into one nationalized health care insurance program with a streamlined electronic billing process. Taxes will likely have to be increased to help fund this. Existing for-profit healthcare insurers may find themselves competing against the new Medicaid system and may be downgraded to providing secondary insurance coverage. New legislation for price controls for medical supplies, medical equipment and pharmaceuticals can be expected by the end of the decade (2020). Medical procedure costs i.e. heart transplants, surgeries, cancer treatments, etc. could see rigid price controls with limitations on who will qualify for access.
These measures are expected to decrease healthcare costs for a large section of the population but if implemented will drastically change the corporate landscape of healthcare reducing profitability among a number of health care sectors. Regardless of ones political philosophies what almost every health care economist and the bulk of our lawmakers already know is that the system we had prior to the healthcare reform was unsustainable. The massive numbers of retiring baby boomers and the near exponential increase of obesity related health issues could overburden the old system within 10 to 20 years. Something had to be done to curb the increasing costs and profit taking at every sector before the system completely collapsed further damaging what is likely to be an already fragile economy.
Lawmakers believe that by being proactive there is a chance to stem costs and provide as much service as is financially possible to the majority of the population. Unfortunately, if you are over 75 or whatever the determined cutoff age is you may no longer be considered a viable contributor to society, therefore your tier of service will begin to decrease compared to the rest of the population. Another possibility would be to limit expensive healthcare programs and treatments associated with aging from the overall plan offered to the public. There will still be the option of purchasing what will certainly be very private supplementary insurance.
The US currently spends the most on healthcare of any nation on Earth and even with a social system the costs will remain high. It is the most medicated country in the world while having the highest mortality rate among preventable terminal illnesses. In addition, obesity rates due to poor diets consisting of refined processed foods saturated in fats, salts, sugars, and simple carbohydrates are the highest of any of the industrial nations and the primary cause of the US overall poor health.
Baby boomers of retirement age and those in their middle years are going to have to realize that their healthcare coverage into their 70’s may not be able to meet their needs. With limiting medical resources available and healthcare designed around providing drug treatments as opposed to preventive practices and cures, those in high risk tiers are going to need a different approach.
The future of US healthcare may eventually evolve into something similar to today’s European socialized medicine. The U.S. population should start taking responsibility for their health and change their lifestyles if they want to live into their 70’s and 80’s with any kind of quality of life. This means eating healthy and abandoning our unhealthy American food preferences, instead begin eating like our grandparents did, exercising at least 15 – 30 minutes per day (continuous movement), and weaning ourselves off of multiple drug treatments and their long term toxic effects and towards preventive measures and more natural remedies where applicable. Catastrophic health care costs associated with heart disease, cancer treatments, etc. may not be readily available once individuals reach the determined cut off age, if this becomes the case we will have to rely on our own ability to stay healthy.
The next series of blogs will discuss the options and difficulties of eating healthy in the U.S.
The U.S. healthcare system is currently the last remaining privatized healthcare system in the industrialized world. There is a strong possibility this will change over the course of the next 5 to 10 years. The new healthcare plan passed by the Obama administration is the first of many stages that could, over the next decade, lead us down the road to socialized medicine. This is a similar path that many European countries followed along the way to creating a complete socialized medical system. Many of these countries plans were initially met with strong public resistance but the end result was a socialized medical system.
This may not be as drastic a transition for the U.S. as one might think; we already have active programs of socialized medicine, Medicare, Medicaid, and the U.S. military’s Tricare. The U.S. Medicare system was the basis for the country of Taiwan’s recently redesigned socialized medicine health care system. Over the next decade U.S. citizens could see incremental legislative corrections to the new health care reform bill. These corrections could also result in a further expansion of Medicaid and Medicare and possibly the combining of both programs into one nationalized health care insurance program with a streamlined electronic billing process. Taxes will likely have to be increased to help fund this. Existing for-profit healthcare insurers may find themselves competing against the new Medicaid system and may be downgraded to providing secondary insurance coverage. New legislation for price controls for medical supplies, medical equipment and pharmaceuticals can be expected by the end of the decade (2020). Medical procedure costs i.e. heart transplants, surgeries, cancer treatments, etc. could see rigid price controls with limitations on who will qualify for access.
These measures are expected to decrease healthcare costs for a large section of the population but if implemented will drastically change the corporate landscape of healthcare reducing profitability among a number of health care sectors. Regardless of ones political philosophies what almost every health care economist and the bulk of our lawmakers already know is that the system we had prior to the healthcare reform was unsustainable. The massive numbers of retiring baby boomers and the near exponential increase of obesity related health issues could overburden the old system within 10 to 20 years. Something had to be done to curb the increasing costs and profit taking at every sector before the system completely collapsed further damaging what is likely to be an already fragile economy.
Lawmakers believe that by being proactive there is a chance to stem costs and provide as much service as is financially possible to the majority of the population. Unfortunately, if you are over 75 or whatever the determined cutoff age is you may no longer be considered a viable contributor to society, therefore your tier of service will begin to decrease compared to the rest of the population. Another possibility would be to limit expensive healthcare programs and treatments associated with aging from the overall plan offered to the public. There will still be the option of purchasing what will certainly be very private supplementary insurance.
The US currently spends the most on healthcare of any nation on Earth and even with a social system the costs will remain high. It is the most medicated country in the world while having the highest mortality rate among preventable terminal illnesses. In addition, obesity rates due to poor diets consisting of refined processed foods saturated in fats, salts, sugars, and simple carbohydrates are the highest of any of the industrial nations and the primary cause of the US overall poor health.
Baby boomers of retirement age and those in their middle years are going to have to realize that their healthcare coverage into their 70’s may not be able to meet their needs. With limiting medical resources available and healthcare designed around providing drug treatments as opposed to preventive practices and cures, those in high risk tiers are going to need a different approach.
The future of US healthcare may eventually evolve into something similar to today’s European socialized medicine. The U.S. population should start taking responsibility for their health and change their lifestyles if they want to live into their 70’s and 80’s with any kind of quality of life. This means eating healthy and abandoning our unhealthy American food preferences, instead begin eating like our grandparents did, exercising at least 15 – 30 minutes per day (continuous movement), and weaning ourselves off of multiple drug treatments and their long term toxic effects and towards preventive measures and more natural remedies where applicable. Catastrophic health care costs associated with heart disease, cancer treatments, etc. may not be readily available once individuals reach the determined cut off age, if this becomes the case we will have to rely on our own ability to stay healthy.
The next series of blogs will discuss the options and difficulties of eating healthy in the U.S.
This piece is a strong dose of much needed reality. Political opposition from the right to universal care is prolific and stentorian. The political line most touted during the run up to the passage of the 1020 Healthcare Reform bill was the assertion that America has the best healthcare system in the world — we need to improve it, not reinvent it. This is blatantly untrue. It seems to me that a couple of things are at the heart of the problem: Medical costs, especially for specialty procedures; the failure of our medical culture to make prevention the centerpiece of healthcare; and the astronomical costs associated with end of life care (the greatest burden on Midicare/ Medicaide comes by far in the last year of life). The expectation that when it comes to medically sustaining life there should be no constraints on treatment offered is easy to endorse and impossible to financially support.
Thank you for an article that supplies a much needed Reality Check for the United States Healthcare consumer. The opposition to the Health Care Reform Bill was strong before passage and continues to be so in 2011. The most vocal in opposition to Health Care Reform are the Republican Right who have Wall Street investments in Health Care Corporations. From Pharmaceuticals to Surgical Operating Rooms to Insurance Coverage, Wall Street has their fingers in the healthcare pie for profit. Streamlining the Insurance industry into a Universal Single Payer system would allow an analysis into the corrupt profiteering currently plaguing the privatized system we have now.