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October 20, 2005
Can Health Savings Accounts help with healthcare confidence?
The Employee Benefit Research Institute recently released their 2005 Health Confidence Survey, in which 1003 adults were surveyed about their attitudes towards various aspects of health care.
One of the results the survey revealed was that 63 percent believed there would be no change in the quality of their health care if they knew the full price of services they receive.
59 percent believe quality would improve if they had access to more information on the quality of health care providers.
47 percent believe healthcare quality would improve if they had more responsibility for their own medical decisions.
Currently most medical consumers are responsible for just a co-pay for most medical services they use. Most have no idea the real price of the health care services they are about to receive, and have very little ability to discern that information ahead of time.
What if all 3 of these conditions changed? Well, as in any market with competition, quality would improve and price would go down. But because consumers are currently buying medical services with someone else’s money, from providers who don’t post their prices, everyone is being overcharged, often in combination with poor service. This is easy to understand if you think about any other commodity. Clothes, cars, computers – you name it. Quality improves and prices drop over time.
Apologies to all the healthcare providers who offer great service at low prices, as I’m only generalizing. But it is a general truth, as we all know – healthcare costs are out of control. Health Savings Accounts may just be the answer.
Posted by Wiley Long at October 20, 2005 09:30 AM