> Judah wrote: > > MRI's were developed at Stony Brook University in the 70's
My point is that private industry is incented to invent, develop and innovate these technologies through profit; Government controls on their use could seriously inhibit that. (if they weren't, after all, they wouldn't!!) Example of a failure scenario on the care level: If a government run healthcare system said, for example, we'll decided who and when MRIs are used. If the overall impact of that policy is to drop MRI use and, further, purchase of MRIs is at the government level every, say, 5 years. That would drastically remove innovation from the marketplace. Instead of lots of vendors selling to lots of hospitals, you'd have a few vendors selling to the gov't. An example of multi-payer success at the current plan level: As mentioned, private insurance companies can buy Medicare risk from the government in a way that incents them to keep people healthy. The way it works is that, say, Cam-Chi Health tells the government it's going to buy population X's health risk from them. In exchange Medicare pays Cam-Chi a per-member-per-month fee, provides them with a risk-adjustment (RAF) fee, provides them with a quality bonus based on HEDIS scores, and requires monthly oversight. Cam-Chi is betting that its enrollees cost less than the PMPM fee it receives from Medicare. And it's incented to keep them healthy because if it does, it makes more profit. (Monthly CMS review prevents denial of legitimate claims). My point is, public-private partnerships can and do work great. But the minute the government restricts plans, we're screwed. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:288822 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
