Eye Didn't Know!

Health Care Costs

Did you know? Imagine a restaurant where you don't pay for your food. Everyone else in the restaurant pays your bill. Imagine that none of the other diners pay for their food. You, and everyone else pay for their meal. Do a thought experiment as to what would happen to expenses at this restaurant. 

With everyone else paying for your food, you would likely indulge in the finest, most expensive food on the menu. As would everyone else at the restaurant. The restaurant would keep raising prices, as demand would keep rising. If all restaurants were forced to operate in this way, costs would explode, and dining would assume a greater and greater share of the nation's economy.

Do the same thought experiment with haircuts. Housing. Automobiles. Computers. Televisions. It is obvious that costs would rise in each situation.

Medical Care.

Oops, that situation today exists for most medical care.

Two historical events provided the incentives for this situation. In World War II, wage and price controls (never a good idea) were imposed. Employers wanted to reward their employees in other ways, so the government mandated that health insurance could be provided tax-free. Thus began the link between employment and insurance, and the incentive for insurance to become bloated, providing for more than just catastrophic illnesses and accidents, like insurance was designed to do.

Second, Medicare and Medicaid were started in the 1960s to provide "free" health care for seniors and the poor, thus creating the situation like the restaurant above. 

John Stossel, as usual, hits the nail on the head in this excellent video:

For a way out of this mess, John Mackey, president of Whole Foods Markets, provides these clear, economically sound solutions.

What is an ophthalmologist?

Did you know? I often find it surprising how many people do not know the difference between an ophthalmologist and an optometrist. For this subject, I will defer to the American Academy of Ophthalmology website. "One source of confusion stems from the fact that optometrists are often referred to as eye doctors although, unlike ophthalmologists, they do not have medical degrees... An Eye M.D. (ophthalmologist) receives a minimum of 12 years of education, which typically includes four years of college, four years of medical school, one or more years of general clinical training and three or more years in a hospital-based eye residency program, often followed by one or more years of subspecialty fellowship." That would explain why so many ophthalmologists have gray hair when we finish training!

Did you also know? In many offices optometrists are part of a team which may consist of ophthalmologists, optometrists, opticians, ophthalmic medical assistants, ophthalmic technicians, ophthalmic photographers, and nurses. A full explanation of all of these skilled professions is found at the American Academy of Ophthalmology.