Health Topics

Health topics

Introduction

The following three websites on medical health topics were short listed and finally the evaluation will be made on selection number 2 i.e. How Medical Technology Costs Are Destroying Our Health Care System Daniel Callahan

1- Health Care Medical Technology, inc. https://www.hcmti.com/

2-How Medical Technology Costs Are Destroying Our Health Care System Daniel Callahan

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9016.html

3- Unhealthy Dilemmas http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v3n3/

Evaluation

Doctor Daniel Callahan explains that there is general agreement that health costs are likely to continue to rise in the foreseeable future.  Many analysts have cited controlling health care costs as a key tenet for broader economic stability and growth, and President Obama has made cost control a focus of health reform efforts under way. Although Americans benefit from many of the investments in health care, the recent rapid cost growth, coupled with an overall economic slowdown and rising federal deficit, is placing great strains on the systems used to finance health care, including private employer-sponsored health insurance coverage and public insurance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. One effort, the advent of “managed care,” which represented a shift towards greater control over utilization of services, did initially seem to generate savings as managed care practices became widespread throughout the late 1980s and 1990s. 

However, spending has since rebounded sharply as the health sector seems to have exhausted one-time savings and a backlash loosened many managed care policies, particularly restrictions on consumer choice.  The different proposals currently in the policy arena are divided broadly by debate over a stronger role for government negotiation or market-based models relying on competitive forces. Currently, employees do not pay income or payroll tax on money employers spend on their health insurance, regardless of the cost of those benefits. Some current health reform proposals suggest eliminating or changing the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health care to help finance the costs of expanding coverage as well as reducing incentives for the most generous and therefore expensive health plans. 

One possibility is that the tax exclusion would be capped at the value of benefits received by Members of Congress, and employees opting for more expensive health plans would be taxed on the difference.  Those against eliminating the tax exclusion worry doing so could drive up the cost of health insurance to workers and disproportionately affect smaller companies and those with an older workforce, who tend to pay higher premiums. technology costs reflect the way our health care system is financed and organized ...