After living through the first pandemic in more than 100 years, Americans may be in the midst of a new one. “We are facing a new type of pandemic…The affordability crisis is a pandemic,” Lee Shapiro, managing partner at healthcare venture fund 7wireVenture, said on Tuesday. luckBrainstorming Health Conference in Dana Point, California, on Tuesday.
More than half of working-age adults can’t afford health care, he said, and “when they can’t afford it, they don’t buy prescriptions, they delay care, they don’t earn money.” Appointment…that’s a big problem. ”
According to Larry Levitt, executive vice president of health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, the affordability crisis is driven by two factors: It is the cost and structure of private insurance in the United States that is twice the level of other high-income countries. Therefore, your deductible will be higher.
Despite recent moves to expand access to insurance, millions of Americans remain underinsured, said Gray Ghost Capital founder and director of health policy and management at Columbia University. said Siad Meghan Fitzgerald, an adjunct professor. “Cancer treatment can go bankrupt,” she said. “You can imagine the double whammy of getting a diagnosis and then getting a $5,000 bill, but these people have insurance,” Fitzgerald said later. He pointed out that nearly 20% of the total was spent on medical care.
Aside from affordability, Levitt said he can imagine its complexity making it difficult for people to take advantage of it and understand what their out-of-pocket costs would be. “Employers are part of the problem,” he said, although they also foot the bulk of the cost. Levitt accused employers of failing to use their economic or political influence to reduce health care costs, saying holding employers accountable would help alleviate the affordability crisis. He added that it could be really helpful. Finally, Shapiro noted that transparency between employers and insurers also helps.
and as luck Senior writer Maria Aspan moderated the discussion, noting that the US is in an election year, and asked what the panelists hoped for regardless of the outcome. Levitt said without much hesitation that “there is bipartisan agreement on the issues where that can be done,” and that “I hope we can find a way to make some progress on the affordability issue.” Meanwhile, Shapiro said he hopes there will be recognition of how many people rely on the Affordable Care Act for health care access, given how big an issue it has become (the Obama-era reforms that polarized Americans for a decade).
