Posted on 09/11/2012 6:56:19 AM PDT by Lorianne
video 28:03
Over the years healthcare costs in the US have increased from 5% of GDP in the 60s to 17.4% in 2009, according to an OECD report published in 2011. A recent report from the Institute of Medicine calculated systemic waste in the US healthcare system at $765 billion, representing 30% of total expenditures. We ask Doctor Keith Smith, Managing Partner and Medical Director for the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, about the role of insurance companies, wasteful administration costs, and hospital inefficiencies.
Keith Smith runs an independent surgical clinic and brings free market competitive prices to surgery. He offers customers lower prices and patients fly in from all over the world, even from countries with universal healthcare systems, to get surgery at his center.
Too bad Obamacare outlaws anymore of these hospitals.
...Section 6001 of the health care law effectively bans new physician-owned hospitals (POHs) from starting up, and it keeps existing ones from expanding. It has already halted the development of 24 new physician-owned hospitals and forced an additional 47 to struggle to meet the deadline to complete construction, according to the Physician Hospitals of America (PHA)...
It takes less cash to get in and out than the co-pays on many American insurance plans. There are clinics in third world countries offering even better rates, but this one is located in a first world country with first world medicine.
Actually, this sounds like a free standing Ambulatory Surgery Center where physician ownership will still be allowed. I agree the free market would provide cost control through competition, but the sad thing is that except for a few isolated cases, the free market does not exist in health care. Licensure, accreditation, permits are just the tip of iceburg in obstructing the market place. Many of these roadblocks were put in place by the industry itself to protect them selves from competition.
I wonder how this guy gets around those restrictive laws?
Maybe because he is an outpatient clinic and not a hospital?
FYI....
http://www.surgerycenterok.com/
“The pricing outlined on this website is not a teaser, nor is it a bait-and-switch ploy. It is the actual price you will pay. We can offer these prices because we are completely physician-owned and managed. We control every aspect of the facility from real estate costs, to the most efficient use of staff, to the elimination of wasteful operating room practices that non-profit hospitals have no incentive to curb. We are truly committed to providing the best quality care at the lowest possible price. “
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