{"id":16612,"date":"2025-03-04T15:02:22","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T15:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=16612"},"modified":"2025-03-04T15:02:22","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T15:02:22","slug":"a-big-insurer-backed-off-its-plan-to-pay-less-for-anesthesia-thats-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=16612","title":{"rendered":"A big insurer backed off its plan to pay less for anesthesia. That\u2019s bad."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“this particular fight was not actually about putting the interests of patients against those of rapacious corporations. Anthem\u2019s policy would not have increased costs for their enrollees. Rather, it would have reduced payments for some of the most overpaid physicians in America<\/a>. And when millionaire doctors beat back cost controls \u2014 as they have here \u2014 patients pay the price through higher premiums.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“the avarice and inefficiencies of private insurers are not the sole \u2014 or even primary \u2014 reasons why vital medical services are often unaffordable and inaccessible in the United States. The bigger issue is that America\u2019s health care providers \u2014 hospitals, physicians, and drug companies<\/a> \u2014 charge much higher rates than their peers in other wealthy nations.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In 2023, the average physician salary<\/a> in the United States was $352,000. In Germany, that figure was $160,000; in the United Kingdom, it was $122,000; in France, it was $93,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This discrepancy is partly explained by the fact that those European nations have more socialized health care systems, in which the government imposes more cost controls on medical providers. In the past, progressives have emphasized that a Medicare-for-all system would reduce overall health care costs by forcing providers to accept lower payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With its new policy, Anthem was attempting to do precisely this: force anesthesiologists to accept lower rates of reimbursement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the case for forcing down payment rates for anesthesiologists is especially strong. According to Medscape\u2019s 2024 Anesthesiologist Salary Report<\/a>, the average salary for an American anesthesiologist in 2023 was $472,000<\/a>. This represented a $70,000 increase over the field\u2019s average salary in 2022. This puts anesthesiology in the top 10 highest-paid physician specialties in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we want America\u2019s health care system to treat more patients \u2014 while charging us all less money for coverage \u2014 then there is no alternative to forcing myriad specialists to accept lower payment rates.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy\/390031\/anthem-blue-cross-blue-shield-anesthesia-limits-insurance<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“this particular fight was not actually about putting the interests of patients against those of rapacious corporations. Anthem\u2019s policy would not have increased costs for their enrollees. Rather, it would have reduced payments for some of the most overpaid physicians in America. And when millionaire doctors beat back cost controls \u2014 as they have here \u2014 patients pay the price through higher premiums.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“the avarice and inefficiencies of private insurers are not the sole \u2014 or even primary \u2014 reasons why vital medical services are often unaffordable and inaccessible in the United States. The bigger issue is that America\u2019s health care providers \u2014 hospitals, physicians, and drug companies \u2014 charge much higher rates than their peers in other wealthy nations.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“In 2023, the average physician salary in the United States was $352,000. In Germany, that figure was $160,000; in the United Kingdom, it was $122,000; in France, it was $93,000.
\nThis discrepancy is partly explained by the fact that those European nations have more socialized health care systems, in which the government imposes more cost controls on medical providers. In the past, progressives have emphasized that a Medicare-for-all system would reduce overall health care costs by forcing providers to accept lower payments.<\/p>\n

With its new policy, Anthem was attempting to do precisely this: force anesthesiologists to accept lower rates of reimbursement.<\/p>\n

And the case for forcing down payment rates for anesthesiologists is especially strong. According to Medscape\u2019s 2024 Anesthesiologist Salary Report, the average salary for an American anesthesiologist in 2023 was $472,000. This represented a $70,000 increase over the field\u2019s average salary in 2022. This puts anesthesiology in the top 10 highest-paid physician specialties in the United States.<\/p>\n

If we want America\u2019s health care system to treat more patients \u2014 while charging us all less money for coverage \u2014 then there is no alternative to forcing myriad specialists to accept lower payment rates.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy\/390031\/anthem-blue-cross-blue-shield-anesthesia-limits-insurance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[81,334,80,73,22],"class_list":["post-16612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-health","tag-health-insurance","tag-health-system","tag-healthcare","tag-insurance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16613,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16612\/revisions\/16613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}