re: Fundamentally Speaking, are There Any Industries That Should Be Not For Profit?

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Ochsner Health System has been providing high-quality clinical and hospital patient care to Louisiana residents since 1942. Our healthcare family—today, comprising more than 18,000 employees and and over 1,100 physicians in over 90 medical specialties and subspecialties—is driven by our commitment to Serve, Heal, Lead, Educate and Innovate, and that passion is shared with every person who passes through our doors.

A strong foundation

As southeast Louisiana’s largest nonprofit, academic, multispecialty healthcare delivery system, Ochsner is driven by a mission to Serve, Heal, Lead, Educate and Innovate. Coordinated clinical and hospital patient care, all connected electronically to provide convenience for our patients, is provided across the region by Ochsner’s 30 owned, managed and affiliated hospitals and more than 80 health centers and urgent care centers.

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Antonio, have you started making up facts for dramatic impact?

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Show me one public-only industry that has better outcomes than private industry.

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Maybe, but I’d like to see data relative to the proportionate impact.

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“Our results suggest that Medicare’s decisions are far more influential than you may imagine,” said Joshua Gottlieb, an economist at the University of British Columbia. His research shows that a $1 change in the price that Medicare pays yields a $1.30 change in what private insurers pay.

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What happens if the government gets those prices wrong? In the past year, a Washington Post investigation has shown that Medicare prices are sometimes based on faulty premises, offer perverse incentives for unnecessary care and provide widely varying amounts for equivalent drugs.

The government may be spending billions of dollars more than necessary for some products and services. Moreover, the influence of Medicare prices means that those faults may be replicated throughout U.S. health care.

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Economists believe that the Medicare prices are even more important than that massive scale suggests, because in the absence of a traditional market for medical services, the Medicare prices form the foundation for private insurers, as well.

That is partly because Medicare is such a huge player in the market, accounting for more than a fifth of the money spent on personal health care. But there is a second, possibly more important impetus: Because of the complexity of modern medicine, setting prices is an arduous, time-consuming task. Insurers save money by letting Medicare do the work.

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