Healthcare rip-offs stink! I was at a meeting on Friday where we were told that our hospital is bleeding money. They didn't mention that the CEO of our hospital gets paid $31 million a year.
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They repeatedly say they need to pay this type of money to attract the appropriate talent, and not just anyone can do those jobs. I think more people could be an executive than say an electrician or plumber. Because executives just seem to be full of shit and lie.
Admin costs aren’t only administrators themselves and it’s not just hospitals. A lot of doctor's offices have staff that is solely dedicated to dealing with insurance/prior authorization. These jobs didn’t exist 20-30 years ago
There isn’t one simple answer, since the answer is different for private hospitals vs public vs academic, etc. A big chunk goes towards fighting insurance companies, who have become increasingly ruthless in denying claims over the years. The medical malpractice industry also plays a role.
I don’t know the whole story but I know the process to get certain medications and treatments for patients has become more restrictive and complex. Now doctors end up fighting insurers to justify their choices, multiply that by a full patient load and now you need staff to manage it
Take step therapy for instance; say your doc knows you need drug Z for your condition— drug Z is newer and more efficacious. But the insurer doesn’t want to pay for drug Z right away because of the cost. So Z is denied and you have to try drugs X and Y first.
There are 134 NCAA Division 1-FBS teams and 129 NCAA Division 1-FCS teams. If there were only 263 colleges in the United States, we could maybe blame athletics spending for the rising cost of higher education, but there are many more than that.
And then for a lot of those 263 schools with some kind of NCAA D1 football, the football (and maybe basketball) programs bring in nearly all of the revenue that pays for the entire athletic department.
So it's still not a good explanation for rising education costs.
The cost of tuition at a school is also not correlated with its athletics spending, either. Amherst College is allegedly the most expensive school at $91k/yr, and they play D3 sports and make a slight profit on ~$8.3M in athletics revenues.
The preoccupation with football above all else is something I didn’t really ‘get’ until I met a nice couple on vacation. Our conversation came to a halt when they defended Joe Paterno because well, football and their Alma Mater.
For perspective: Attending Physician of Congress charges members a flat $503/yr. All care is free. They don't file any paperwork. Any overages in charges are paid by US Navy budget. And we wonder why they don't get how damn angry we are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attending_Physician_of_the_United_States_Congress
It seems there's a pattern of smooth talking ex-frat boys in expensive suits skimming off professionals who work their asses off for the greater good. Meanwhile, those health care administrators "work" remotely from one of their vacation homes.
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That WOULD have been very expensive in their upfront costs, but not anymore ...
https://jacobin.com/2024/12/health-care-shooting-insurance-costs
If you need a lot pf managers you should be smaller
So it's still not a good explanation for rising education costs.