Jay Parkinson, MD

Healthcare in America. The U.S. spent $2.472 trillion on healthcare last year, according to a paper out today in the journal Health Affairs. That's $282 million an hour.

Y’all are barking up the wrong tree on this one…physician salaries are a meager 9% of that $2.5 trillion market.

Prior to any healthcare reforms, the cost of health insurance in 7 years will be 41% of the average family’s pre-tax income.

Doctors don’t get paid for discussing end-of-life care with Medicare patients. That’s true whether the patient wants heroic measures taken to extend life in the hospital, or hospice care in the home.

An excellent article in the Times highlighting Bassett Hospital in New York where they pay their physicians a salary. Their costs are in the bottom 10% of NY Hospitals but their quality ranks in the top 90%.

I very much believe that “healthcare reform” (if we see any “reform”) will be legislated handouts to those current players who spend the most on lobbyists. I have no faith in our government to do the right thing given that our government feels the need to protect corporate interests more than citizen interests.

This is actually one of the most important points to understand about healthcare reform. For those advocating for reform that “provides healthcare” to the 50 million uninsured, it’s simple economics.

Cuomo wants to create a not-for-profit entity that ensures objective, transparent and reasonable out-of-network insurance pricing for individuals in New York... obviously an amazing thing to do. However, he wants to spend $100 million to do this.