Published: December 09, 2009
How Can We Pay For Healthcare Reform?
By Tony Panaccio
Expert Reveals That Fixing FDA Can Save Consumers Hundreds of Billions
While Congress and the rest of the nation turn the battle over healthcare reform into a pro-wrestling-style steel cage death match with enough rhetoric to choke an English professor, at least one expert is looking beyond the bills on the table for a different solution.
According to a lengthy report by legal expert Terence Mix, author of The American Healthcare Dilemma (www.terencemix.com), reorganizing the FDA and its activities could save Americans a trillion dollars over the next decade, essentially paying for healthcare reform through a combination of saving consumers money, saving insurance companies money and saving the government money.
"Congress can deliver a pain-free healthcare plan - and the solution is right in its own back yard," Mix said. "In Rockville, Maryland, actually, at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) of the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the division responsible for the approval and monitoring of prescription and nonprescription drugs. And it won't require raising taxes on the wealthy, penalizing individuals and employers who don't purchase health insurance or reducing Medicare payments to medical providers. It will only require fixing the archaic and inefficient methods and practices of the CDER branch of the FDA."
Mix believes that cleaning up FDA miscues can save consumers serious money in unnecessary healthcare costs, as well as free up some much-needed federal dollars. His chief complaints include:
More than 50 percent of all drugs have serious adverse reactions that are discovered only after the drugs have entered the market (e.g., they are not detected during premarket testing) - making us all unwitting guinea pigs.
About 2,270,000 patients per year incur hospital costs as a result of adverse drug reactions.
Another 4,300,000 visit other healthcare providers (physicians, hospital outpatient departments and emergency rooms) as a result of adverse drug reactions.
Approximately 230,000 die each year as a result of an adverse drug reaction (105,000 using drugs as directed and 125,000 as a result of mistakes) - the third leading cause of death in the United States.
The total annual healthcare cost as a consequence of adverse drug reactions exceeds a staggering $200 billion - an amount equal to what is spent on Medicaid every year and almost half of what is spent on Medicare.
"These costs can be cut in half by fixing everything that is wrong with the FDA and the system of testing drugs," he added. "This would amount to healthcare savings of at least $100 billion per year - one trillion dollars over ten years - not to mention saving one million lives over the same period of time. If the need for medical services decreases, insurance company payouts also decrease, with a corresponding fall in premium costs. Consumers also aren't paying as much for their out-of-pocket costs as a result. Finally, the government is spending far less and accomplishing far more, reducing its burden and freeing up tax dollars to pay for those healthcare customers who are truly needy."
Tony Panaccio is a staff writer for News & Experts Syndicate
About Terry Mix
A graduate of the University of Southern California and Hastings College of Law in San Francisco and a member of the California State Bar since January 4, 1967, he has spent most of his 40-plus years in practice engaged in the subspecialty of drug product liability, litigating against many of the major pharmaceutical companies in the United States. In 1981, Terence Mix was elected president of what is now the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles and for 12 years sat on the Board of Governors of the California Trial Lawyers Association (now Consumer Attorneys of California). He has lectured and written extensively on litigation techniques and strategies, including the prosecution and trial of drug product cases.
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