Health Care Regulation A $169 Billion Hidden Tax

Cato Institute ^ | October 4, 2004 | Christopher J. Conover

[Dr. Free Market]

Conover notes that 6.8 million people lack health insurance due to regulatory costs, or about one in six of the average daily uninsured. He goes on to note that the costs of regulation could translate into 22,200 deaths annually, which would be over 4,000 more than supposedly linked to a lack of insurance coverage.

Raymond J. Keating Chief Economist Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council

[Dr. Free Market]

I'm new to the forum, but as I do health services research, I thought this would be appropriate. I've linked to the full report. The following link is to a short article about the report.

http://www.sbecouncil.org/FactOfWeek.asp?FormMode=Call&LinkType=Text&ID=301

[NormalGuy]

I'll Study the report.
Can anyone point to a single person who has better health due to HIPPA? (other than we who were paid to do compliance)

HIPPA has cost many billions in software programming alone... which has benefitted us programmers greatly. It has required so much programming that insurance companies can't find enough programmers and have had no choice but to outsource some HIPPA coding to India.

The HIPPA regulations are a moving target. They keep changing which means its front end cost is not yet finished.

ADA was also expensive. But we can actually point to a couple thousand people whose lives were improved by ADA, albeit at a very high cost. I have yet to hear where HIPPA regulations have improved the health of a single person

The BlueCross-BlueShield Family - many Billions on HIPPA
The Aetnas and stock insurance companies - Many Billions.
HMOs - Many Billions.
Property & Casualty insurers - maybe only a single Billion.
Federal, State and local Health and Welfare Depts - Many Billions (thank you taxpayers).
Hospitals, large health providers - Many Billions.
Small health care providers.... where'd they go. I can't find them... I wonder why.
etc.