Increasing costs

We all know that healthcare costs are increasing faster than the rate of inflation. People are upset. But, some of it is due to simple capitalistic supply and demand. It is due to a cycle that was set up by the typical sport of looking at the short-term rather than the long-term. There is a nursing shortage. There is a medical technologist shortage. There is a physician shortage. There is a dentist shortage. And, we are a country that believes that capitalism will magically solve everything with little planning. Somehow, supply and demand will take care of the problem.

Well, there is a half-truth there. The wages of nurses, medical technologists, etc., is rising far faster than the rate of inflation. After all, the demand for various healthcare professions exceeds the supply. Therefore, hospitals, clinics, etc., can only compete with what is becoming scarcer resources by raising wages in the hope that they can hire a healthcare professional away from a fellow hospital or clinic. The USA has tried to cope by allowing more healthcare professionals to immigrate from other countries, but that is both counterproductive and counterintuitive. Nevertheless, there is almost no hospital in America in which a foreign-trained professional is not found.

Here is an example of what is happening. During this time of increasing shortage of medical technologists the number of medical technology schools is actually decreasing. Universities do not wish to spend the money to maintain scientifically adequate laboratories for a profession that requires intensive laboratory training. It is easier to shut down the school because they cannot “make a profit.” The USA is so short-sighted that its response has been that there is nothing we can do. There is no national program of support for the profession that can be begun. Somehow capitalism must take care of the problem. But, the problem is becoming worse and worse for various healthcare professionals.

Sadly, it will take a near collapse of the healthcare system, and maybe not even then. Capitalism has been unable to address the problem and yet there is no drive to address it other than to try and set reimbursement restrictions. But, reimbursement restrictions do not recruit professionals. Money and cheap training do. Yet, we have been unwilling to invest in our healthcare system, merely responding by citing political philosophies while the problem measurably worsens. After all, one of the ways to lower costs is to invest in training so that more professionals are available so that wages stabilize. But, that requires long-term planning. And long-term healthcare planning is a politically laden subject.

So, I (along with many people on both sides of the political divides) see a massive problem approaching. Insufficient physicians, insufficient nurses, insufficient medical laboratory scientists, insufficient, insufficient, insufficient. None of us see any hopeful signs looking ahead. The solution to this problem requires seed money and subsidies. Yet, neither of those is available. Both Democratic and Republican think tanks have been warning of the shortages. Doing nothing seems to be the order of the day. The problem is among us. But, we have no solutions.

Expect healthcare costs to keep climbing with no mercy for those who have insufficient money to buy good insurance, and maybe even those who have supposedly good insurance.