Health care bubble pops

If you can't get behind single-payer, just travel abroad:

The health insurer Wellpoint is testing a new program that gives covered patients the option of going to India for elective surgery, with no out-of-pocket medical costs and free travel for both the patient and a companion.

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The potential savings are significant. Knee surgery that costs $70,000 to $80,000 in the United States can be performed in India for $8,000 to $10,000, including follow-up care and rehabilitation, Dr. Hashmi said. Similar savings could be achieved for such common procedures as hip replacements and spine surgery.

If India isn't to your liking, there's always South Korea:

South Korea has joined Thailand, Singapore, India and other Asian nations in the lucrative business of medical tourism. Heart bypasses, spinal surgery, hip-joint replacements, cosmetic surgery — procedures that may cost tens of thousands of dollars in the United States — can often be done for one-third or even one-tenth of the cost in Asia, with much shorter waiting times and by specialists often trained in the West.

Americans fleeing the high cost of medicine at home have spurred the trend. Last year, 750,000 Americans sought cheaper treatment abroad, a figure projected to reach 6 million by 2010, according to a recent study by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, a consultancy.

The health care cost spiral can't continue forever, especially in an economic downturn. Already, the construction of new hospitals is being hit by the credit crunch. Meanwhile, closer to home, Clark College will cut the number of slots open to aspiring health care professionals:

Clark College President Bob Knight and other community college leaders were previously told to brace for state funding cuts of up to 20 percent in the 2009-11 budget cycle.

Now, the cuts might reach 30 percent, given a dire new state budget forecast.

“That is huge. That is major, major impact on a community college,” a grim Knight said on Wednesday. “We’re going to have to make drastic cuts.”

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Several teaching faculty, classified staff and administrative positions will go unfilled. That would impact deaf teacher training, nursing practice instruction, engineering program enrollment and a proposed autism research and training program.

Hospitals being mothballed, prospective patients traveling abroad, and training programs being cut does not add up to healthy industry. Assumptions made earlier that health care jobs would be plentiful or that the expansion of health care costs as a percentage of GDP would grow indefinitely will have to be reined in.

Simply put, incrementalist approaches to health care reform are not going to cut it in this environment. The Obama/Daschle plan for yet another version of employer provided coverage belies the simple fact that not everyone has a job. Making health care coverage based on employment isn't a safety net, and it will do nothing to contain costs. That's why just about every other civilized country has some form of publicly provided health care. Instead our system is based on gross margin, not health outcomes.

I'm sure the Obama plan stands a good chance of passage, but unfortunately, it represents another patchwork of federally mandated regulation that will do little to stem the underlying crisis.