Healthcare Spending to Rise Despite Lack of Patient Input

Healthcare spending is expected to climb to enormous heights by 2024, according to a recent news release by the Citizen’s Council for Health Freedom (CCHF). According to Twila Brase, R.N and Co-Founder and President of CCHF, these rising costs have serious implications for patients and physicians, which is problematic due to the small role patients and physicians play in the healthcare spending decision-making process.

“Every day, others are making decisions about health care who perhaps shouldn’t be – lawmakers, IT executives and researchers,” Brase says. “And all of them have their own agendas, from increasing spending to sharing private medical data to studying and mapping our genome sequences. In actuality, patients and doctors should be the ones making our crucial health care decisions. They are slowly but surely, however, being pushed out of the equation.”

Brase discusses in the news release projected healthcare spending, the increased prices of healthcare premiums, vulnerability of patient information, and the expense and growth of Medicare, a system she says is extremely flawed.

$1 of every $5 spent will be on healthcare by 2024

Brase reports that the government is expected to focus 20 percent of its budget on healthcare spending. This growth is the result of the increased number of healthcare coverage enrollment due to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a stronger economic upswing, and the increase of Medicare participants.

The ACA will cause coverage premiums to increase

According to Brase, healthcare premiums are expected to face a sharp increase. This increase will be felt by both individuals covered by the ACA and those covered by private healthcare plans. Brase says this is due to the continued implementation of the ACA.

“Just a little over a month ago, the Supreme Court ruled to keep Obamacare on life support and squandered the chance to return health freedom to all Americans,” Brase says. “Now, with the mandate and penalties in place in all 50 states with or without a state exchange, all of us will see the result of allowing a flawed government health care system to continue to operate, even though it redistributes income, puts our private medical data at risk, ties the hands of doctors and medical professionals, and leaves Americans with less money in their pockets to pay for the higher cost of health care.”

Patient privacy is at risk due to genomics

Patient data privacy may become vulnerable as experts urge genome researchers to make use of interoperable systems and data exchange in their work. Brase suggests that these practices will put patient’s information at risk.

“In short, this would likely mean less privacy, less power for state legislatures to protect their constituents’ data from intrusion, and more outsider access to the personal, lifestyle, and very private medical and genetic information of all citizens,” Brase says.

Wide-spread Medicare coverage will increase costs

Brase writes that Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont plans to “introduce a single-payer, Medicare-for-all bill.” This bill would urge the government to develop a completely universal healthcare system under Medicare which would extend to all Americans.

As reported by RevCycleIntelligence.com, Brase feels that the Medicare system is too flawed to sustain itself anymore. She offers three arguments for this, stating that Medicare makes false promises regarding costs to its beneficiaries, has deficient funds, and too much bureaucracy associated with the program.

Through discussion and communication of ideas, as well as collaboration with patients and healthcare providers, it is the goal and hope of CCHF to improve upon and resolve the issues Brase has brought forward, thus improving the nation’s healthcare system as a whole.