UnitedHealth suggests methods for cutting a half-trillion dollars in health costs

I've got a suggestion for getting this amount of savings quickly and painlessly. Go to a single-payer system, and eliminate insurance company health plans. Turn 'em into TPAs. There. Done. Nobel Prize anyone?

I am adding my two cents, even though I have not read the detailed report, which probably includes some good ideas. United should be the last company to offer advice about cutting healthcare costs. Their idea of cutting costs is to deny payment to providers and patients without real clinical reason, ignore published information that supports specific treatments and create as many roadblocks as possible in getting authorizations for services and getting paid. In addition, United and most other payers are also large contributors to high cost of healthcare due to complex, illogical and timeconsuming requirements to process payments. Medicare is not immune to this problem with the neverending and confusing coding, documentation and billing rules. It is a lifetime job for CMS staff. Provider community needs an army of people just to read/interpret rules that change on a daily basis. The amount of money wasted in processing, billing and getting claims paid have significantly contributed to high cost of healthcare and it would be nice if our politicians who have never spent a day in a real provider world look into this area just as much as they are focusing on clinical outcomes.

United programs have the goal on how to improve their bottom line which is not the same as better quality care for their patients and they are not alone in this game. And as much as everyone is running around discussing clinical outcomes/quality, etc, the main group that is being impacted are the patients. And that group is missing from all these discussions and no one is asking patients what they really need and what really works.

Any suggestions made by a for-profit-insurer based on their own study and lokking to carve out a place in a new healthcare system should be eyed extremely suspiciously. I have Oxford HEalthcare, part of the United Group of products and we self pay about $1400 per month for insurance. We hardly use services. Each year my premiums are raised approximately $3500. To keep my premium level, I have had to drop my out-of-network coverage, increase my deductibles and this year had to select a $50 copay for even primary care, and a $500/day copay for inpatient hospitalization for the first few days. How lilkely is it that I will forego medical care even when I have insurance??? Very likely. I stockpile antibiotics and when my family is ill, we attempt to doctor ourselves and when that fails, only to seek medical attention. So you see, UHC thinks it has trimmed unnecessary care. What it has done in many cases is to shift money around - so more money goes in their pockects from underutilized services and hospitals are left in the red and forced to close from their zealous and many times uninformed and heartless denials. Bitter, you bet. I am a RN with a Masters in Health Administration, so I know quite a bit about the system uder private health insurers. Dont be fooled by the sheep in wolves' clothing.

i meant dont be fooled by the wolves in sheep's clothing. Can you tell how emotional this subject makes me?