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2018-10-23 Economy
How Ft. Worth Saved on Health Care Costs
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Posted by Bobby 2018-10-23 10:15|| || Front Page|| [2 views ]  Top

#1 That’s right: Office visits are free

No. Someone pays. It's just another monetary slight of hand trick.
Posted by Procopius2k 2018-10-23 11:08||   2018-10-23 11:08|| Front Page Top

#2 P2K - I was thinking the same thing. Some of these services may be at "no charge" to the recipient but funding is coming from somewhere, likely tax dollars. The old saying always applies - "there's no such thing as a free lunch".
Posted by warthogswife 2018-10-23 11:50||   2018-10-23 11:50|| Front Page Top

#3 At least someone's making an effort at using market type solutions for this sort of thing.
Posted by Raj 2018-10-23 13:21||   2018-10-23 13:21|| Front Page Top

#4 It actually makes a lot of sense to get a lot of primary care centers that push the wait times down if it encourages people to get looked at early and catch problems early when they can be cheaply treated. ("A stich in time saves nine", and "Time is money".) if the prescriptions are free, then people won't delay taking them. Also note that they have professional pester-ers (I.e. case managers) that get after people to follow their care plan.

I would NOT be surprised, given the high costs of treating complications of diseases that were allowed to grow unnecessarily large, that avoiding two or three bad cases on the back end would more than pay for primary care level treatment of 10 or more at the front end.

However, to fisk the article: note that the health plan was like the health plan for a business whose members, being responsible enough to hold down a job, would be responsible enough to take care of themselves. Get back to me when Also, the out-of-network visit co-pay is steeper than what I would have to pay, which incentivizes using in-network physicians.

Also, there is no direct comparison between what the plan costs versus what the costs would be if they went network-Obamacare: That's not that high a hurdle to clear to be cheaper than O-care.

It was always known that Obamacare relied heavily on primary care physicians to be gate-keepers to the specialists, but the renumeration structure was such that the specialists were paid more, discouraging participation as primary care physicians. The REJECTEES for Medical doctoral programs are not stupid individuals, so that information got fed back into the system pretty quick (An example of the vital need of socialists and leftists to keep people static and not give them freedom to react in a self-preserving manner, since it wreaks havoc with the predictions of the effects of their programs).
Posted by Ptah 2018-10-23 14:40||   2018-10-23 14:40|| Front Page Top

#5 A lady cutting my hair enthused about her European holiday, among other things she gushed about "...and their health care is free!" When I pointed out that "I Isn't 'free' -- someone had to pay for it." the conversation quickly shifted to another topic after a moment of dead silence.
Economic Illiteracy... *SIGH*
Posted by magpie 2018-10-23 15:46||   2018-10-23 15:46|| Front Page Top

#6 Of course it isn't "free". Somebody does have to pay for it. Personally this might be a good model for a lot of businesses that offer health careas a benefit or even more local, state or dare we say Medicare. In terms of the future economy of this country health Care is the 500 lb gorilla in the room. It's costs continue to outstrip inflation by a large margin. What's the answer? I don't know. Part of the problem is greed on the part of health care providers. Everybody from hospitals to insurance companies. The other part is the greed on the part of health care users. The "little Johnny has a cold, let's take him to the ER" types. On top of that we have the people without health using the ER as their health care provider causing the the providers to build the cost into everything else
Posted by Cheaderhead 2018-10-23 17:41||   2018-10-23 17:41|| Front Page Top

#7 It sounds like the majority of the cost savings comes from incentivizing the employees and their families to go to walk-in clinics with salaried medical staff, which is much cheaper than private doctorw who are paid by the visit... or hospital emergency rooms. But this is not new information — the porblem is getting people to give up their own doctors and settle for the anonymous staff of a clinic instead.

On one hand, treatment is faster and less expensive for both patient and insurance company. On the other hand, there is no continuity of care, no single doctor is keeping an eye on each patient’s progress. It’s fine for the vast majority who are healthy people with simple, common medical needs... and dreadful for those with rare diseases or complicated diagnoses, who need their GP to actively manage their cases and stay in top of new scientific developments.

But given the dire current financial condition of most local and state governments, this is probably the best situation they can provide, and the Fort Worth example does allow individuals who need more than is provided to pay out of pocket for their special needs — the difference between a workable situation and Medicare/Medicaid, which as I understand it do not allow going outside what is covered.
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Posted by trailing wife 2018-10-23 20:36||   2018-10-23 20:36|| Front Page Top

22:02 Anomalous Sources
21:44 USN, Ret.
21:38 Frank G
21:36 Frank G
21:22 trailing wife
20:37 Bobby
20:36 trailing wife
20:10 trailing wife
20:00 Shart the Low-priced4103
19:53 Shart the Low-priced4103
19:49 trailing wife
19:44 49 Pan
19:25 Cheaderhead
19:24 Cheaderhead
19:20 Cheaderhead
19:17 Frank G
19:13 Cheaderhead
19:09 Pancho Shomomble4212
19:07 Roger29 Palms
18:53 Cheaderhead
18:47 Jack Chaiter7913
18:43 Shart the Low-priced4103
18:39 magpie
17:59 Shart the Low-priced4103









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