Doublespeak in Health Policy Reporting

By all accounts, U.S. spending on health care has been growing much more rapidly than national output. Health statistics--health spending as a share of national output or per person, compared across developed nations--routinely ranks the United States at the top of the list, and statistics on effective health care delivered per dollar spent routinely ranks the United States near the bottom. So news reporters could not miss the clear implication that Americans need to cut health care spending growth and make their health care sector more efficient. If we could reduce spending on unnecessary and low-value health care services, it would go a long way in achieving both objectives.

Now for the doublespeak: Many proponents of Health Savings Accounts (HSA) that can only be accessed under a high-deductible health plan tout the increased role of health care consumers. With larger out-of-pocket spending initially, consumers have greater incentives to eliminate unneeded and costly health services. But success on this count is routinely dismissed in the media as having undesirable side effects--as in today’s Wall Street Journal (HSA Users Find Hassles Amid Savings, May 1, 2008, Personal Journal, page D1):

…average health-insurance costs rose 3.6% in the past two years for employers who offered high-deductible plans, compared with a rise of 7% for employers without such plans.

That’s followed by

Some analysts say much of those employer savings come because many HSA participants tend to forgo care.

Excuse me, but isn’t this exactly how it's supposed to work?! The language in all such instances usually hints (as does this WSJ report) that the forgone care is valuable and people with HSAs are therefore suffering unduly. Such implied criticism is unjustified unless accompanied with the qualification that the rejected health care services may not be valuable or cost effective.

Indeed, the article later cites a patient with an HSA “fighting” with a doctor about routine physicals and cardiac exams. The doctor wants these exams to be taken regularly, whereas the patient does not because the high-deductible HSA implies larger out-of-pocket payments. In my personal experience, both types of health checkups are most often a waste of time--all they do is separate the patients from their money, which goes to the doctors.

But if many more consumers were to obtain HSAs and economize their health care spending, it would clearly be a problem for the medical profession. And news reporters usually accept, without further questioning, analysts’ comments about unneeded patient suffering because of forgone care. Clearly, wider use of HSAs and better management of consumers’ health care dollars face tremendous hurdles--the medical profession’s self-interest being the biggest one of all. (And I hope my doctor doesn't read this.)