April 2019
April 4, 2019
Doctor: Why Medical Costs Keep Going Up
“We are rapidly approaching the point where we will simply be unable to afford medical care,” says Dr. Edward Hoffer. This is no exaggeration, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation: health insurance deductibles and copayments are rising so fast that a significant share of working families have great difficulty paying for their care.
“We as a society have to decide whether healthcare is a right or a privilege,” Dr. Hoffer said. “I happen to think it’s a right. We can’t all drive a Mercedes but every American deserves to have access to healthcare.”
His book, “Prescription for Bankruptcy,” provides his insider’s view of why healthcare costs keep going up. For 46 years, he has worked in Massachusetts as a cardiologist, public health official, and hospital and private practice administrator.
Dr. Edward Hoffer
Question: How do U.S. medical costs compare with other countries?
Dr. Hoffer: The U.S. spends roughly twice as much per capita on healthcare as most other countries. Switzerland is nowhere near us, and they’re more expensive than the rest of Europe. Canada, Germany, France – they all have excellent healthcare systems and spend about half per capita what we do.
Q: What does this have to do with patient care?
A family policy costs the employer roughly $20,000 per employee per year, and many employers have been reacting by increasing employees’ deductibles and copays. If you’re the line worker who’s making $50,000 and you’re faced with a $5,000 deductible, you behave like somebody who doesn’t have insurance. You skip your preventive care or you avoid a medication because all of this comes out of your pocket. Women are deciding not to get a mammography or someone who has a colonoscopy recommended to them looks at the prices and says, ‘Maybe I’ll put it off.’
Q: You criticize high pay for hospital administrators. You once visited a Boston hospital CEO whose office was so large that you “could barely see him at the far end.” But aren’t administrators crucial to the system? …Learn More
April 2, 2019
Retirees Ration or Forgo Dental Care
In April, Trudy Schuett will have a procedure to save a tooth, which she estimates a dentist would charge $3,000 to $5,000 to do.
But Schuett, who lacks dental insurance, will pay about $1,000, because the procedure will be performed by dental students at Midwestern University Clinics in Glendale, Arizona. Her cleanings at the school are affordable too.
Regular clinic visits have saved “buckets of money,” she said.
She is one of those resourceful retirees who always finds a way. But two out of three people over 65 do not have dental insurance, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation, often because they lose the coverage when they leave their employer. Medicare does not pay for routine dental expenses, though it sometimes covers care for medical procedures considered integral to a retiree’s health, such as jaw reconstruction or heart surgery; some Medicare Advantage plans offer dental insurance.
But retirees who lack dental insurance are often forced to forgo care or limit their visits to the dentist. Half of seniors haven’t been to a dentist in over a year, Kaiser said. When they do see a dentist, they spend an average $922 out of pocket. For the half of Medicare beneficiaries trying to live on $26,200 or less, dental care consumes, at minimum, 3.5 percent of their income.
Poor dental care also causes health problems. Dry mouth, a side effect of some medications, can cause teeth to loosen or fall out. Tooth loss makes it more difficult to eat. For a variety of reasons, 15 percent of retirees have lost all of their natural teeth – in West Virginia, a low-income state, 30 percent of retirees have no teeth, Kaiser said.
Schuett, who is 67, is working five hours a week for extra income, but she would rather not spend it on expensive dental care. By saving money at the university clinic, she gets to “blow some cash on the grandkids.”
Squared Away writer Kim Blanton invites you to follow us on Twitter @SquaredAwayBC. To stay current on our blog, please join our free email list. You’ll receive just one email each week – with links to the two new posts for that week – when you sign up here. This blog is supported by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. …Learn More
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