Cutting Health Care Costs
Is Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina onto something? They recently created a network of international hospitals for its insurers to use by partnering hospitals in Thailand, Singapore, Turkey India, and Ireland. The list continues to grow. A key component for measuring quality is whether the Joint Commission International, an arm of the Joint Health Care Commission that accredits US hospitals, approves the hospital.
With the costs of procedures at foreign hospitals being substantially less than US hospitals and the state of health of individuals at these hospitals no less than US hospitals it seems that money does not make a better quality of care.
In many comparison studies on health care of the US and other industrial countries where there is universal health, the US population does not live longer or have better outcomes, wait times or successes. The only difference is that the US system is the most costly.
A shift to using the health care system of the world seems like opening competition to the US health care system may just be a way to lower costs. However, buyers beware, it is very difficult to sue for malpractice in many other countries.
One aspect of opening the health care system that I would advocate be assigned to insurers, is the liability that they yearly certify that the appropriate accreditation is current and that procedures be pre-approved to ensure the health insurer referral system documents are current.
