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My Point of View by Joseph Pacovsky

It is obvious that our health delivery system is not sustainable. Medical care’s share of the economy continues to increase, while medical availability declines, especially in rural areas. We have by far the highest cost medical system in the world and yet have the lowest life expectancy of any high-income country.

Last year medical care cost $12,255 per person. By comparison, Germany’s cost was $8,011 per person. The cost of health insurance in the U.S. is a huge obstacle for small businesses and farmers.

This issue has captured more attention recently due to the murder of United Healthcare’s CEO Brian Thompson. This tragic event was allegedly motivated by denials of health care claims by the company. Violence should not be seen as a valid path to bring about political change and should have no place in our society.

Our economy has various delivery and financing methods to provide for the needs and wants of society. Mr. Thompson was part of the private free enterprise system which often works miracles in providing goods and services at low cost. With numerous competitive producers, consumers have choices of what they will purchase. “Competition” is a crucial requirement here. Our health care system is not operating as intended in the free enterprise system.

Another system is government funding through our taxes, which provides basic services like education, highways, national security, police and fire and other emergency services to all people regardless of income. This provides everybody with the basics to succeed.

The current health care system is a mismatch in that the providers of medical services are predominately private profit motivated organizations with no limits on profits while taxpayers and government provide much of the funding. These private companies like United Healthcare maximize their profits (and their executives maximize their pay and bonuses) by restricting services to patients.

Furthermore, they are not even efficient. For example, in 2023 United Healthcare Group had revenue of $367.5 billion, costs (patient payments) of $280.7 billion and administrative costs of $58.6 billion. After-tax earnings were $22.4 billion. Their administrative costs were 21% of medical payments.

Unlike clinics, hospitals and pharmacies that provide care and treatment to patients, insurance companies like United Healthcare add a layer in the delivery system. There are also pharmacy benefit managers creating another layer between patients and pharmacies.

To add insult to injury, physicians and other providers spend more time with paperwork satisfying the insurance companies than treating patients which adds additional costs and inefficiencies to the medical system. This is the curse of the middlemen.

President Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex. The health-industrial complex is much more dangerous in that it has developed many more layers of profit and costs ultimately paid by patients. This medical system has unnecessarily bloated medical costs in pursuit of profits and in some cases even deprived patients of life-saving medical services.

Joseph Pacovsky is a member of the Freeborn County DFL Party.