Healthdollar.org. Why?

How can healthcare be made affordable for everybody in the US? One possible answer and know how much is being spent and begin saving on some of the expenses which are not absolutely necessary.

This web site's focus is to investigate and collect information about how money is being used in the healthcare system. It started as an individual initiative, by Michel Biezunski, who is an information technology consultant interested to contribute in improving the situation of healthcare in the U.S.

Healthdollar.org aims at growing and becoming a grassroots effort and a technology showcase in support of a healthcare reform. It will integrate information coming from a variety of similar initiatives and intends to serve as a bridge with government agencies and employees in charge of, or interested by, the healthcare reform. New technologies can be used to help detect how money is flowing and connect pieces of information together.

It is aimed at being a source of information, and will be enriched until we can understand why the costs are what they are and how money could be better spent to improve the healthcare system and particularly the number of those who can access it.

As there is a need to know how federal dollars (i.e. taxpayers dollars) are spent, there is a parallel need to understand how the money set forth by insurees is spent throughout the healthcare system, and why the US healthcare system is more expensive and provides less benefits to the people that other healthcare systems in various developed countries in the world. Our hope is that by tracking the expenditures which are spent not directly in the interest of the public, it will become possible to provide a better healthcare service.

It is aimed also at being a technology show-case, by showing that information technologies can be used to serve a better cause. Startups, individuals, as well as big companies, who create new ideas and new technologies are invited to provide tools in the service of a better understanding of how the healthcare system works. This web site will serve as a living demonstration of what technologies can offer. This web site will also serve to experiment innovative ways to present information so that for example budget spending can be presented in a form that is accessible by the general public.

This web site is investigative. We don't know when we start where things go, but we want to collect documents to show how the money is spent. We will probably not get access to all the information we request, and we also should report when access to information was denied. The goal is to see if there are low-hanging fruits, where money can easily be saved, and if the amounts are significant, this can help supporting more people having access to healthcare without costing more.

New ideas can help deeply transform the world of healthcare and the way it is managed and administered.

We believe that information technologies can be used in several ways:

• Finding information: Data Mining
• Processing information
  1. Economic models can be tried out in a Wiki for executable English. The models can be developed and refined by the "wisdom of the crowds", providing much educational value. See http://www.reengineeringllc.com including simple models already online: http://www.reengineeringllc.com/demo_agents/BailoutHouseholds1.agent
     http://www.reengineeringllc.com/demo_agents/Derivatives1.agent
     http://www.reengineeringllc.com/demo_agents/EnergyIndependence1.agent
     and here is a short video explaining how to run such models:
     http://www.reengineeringllc.com/ibldrugdbdemo1.htm (Flash video with audio) (Flash video with audio)
• Viewing information: Visualization Technologies
• Accountability and Traceability of how money flows into the healthcare system.

This is just the beginning. The section is under construction.

Uwe E. Reinhardt's Series in the New York Times.

• Part I. Why Does US Health Care Cost So Much?", New York Times, November 14, 2008.
• Part II. Indefensible Administrative Costs. See McKinsey Global Institute estimated that excess spending on "health administration and insurance" accounted for as much as 21 percent of the estimated total excess spending ($477 billion in 2003). 85% of this excess administrative overhead can be attributed to the highly complex private health insurance system in the United States.
• Part III. An Aging Population Isn't the Reason
• Part IV. A Primer on Medicare
• Part V. Can Americans Afford Medicare?
• Part VI. At What Price Physician Autonomy?