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Originally Posted by kidicarus89
Not a single person has ever explained to me how every other advanced nation on the planet has worked out universal healthcare (though imperfect) yet we Americans are still scratching our heads on the issue and are clueless on getting it off the ground.
What's going on there?
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1) You falsely assume that Americans are like everyone else. They aren't. The rest of the world goes to a doctor to get well. Americans go to a doctor to feel good. That might be a very subtle difference, but it's a difference nonetheless, and a very important one that's lost on Americans. To grasp the gist of this, look at the difference in auto insurance between states that have no-fault insurance and states that don't. States that have no-fault insurance charge premiums 4x to 8x higher than states that don't. Why? Because in states with no-fault insurance, people get "injured" in an auto accident and end up going to visit a chiropractor twice a week for the rest of their lives.
2) You falsely assume that legislative practices in the US are the same as those in Europe. In European countries, social welfare legislation is generally very specific, well-thought out, and capped in cost. In the US, social welfare legislation is poorly thought out, not well planned, extremely vague and has no caps, allowing the program to become an "ever-expanding entitlement" that also expands in cost. Bush's Medicare prescription drug program is the latest of such actions. It was touted at costing a mere $300 Billion per year. In one year it expanded to $400 Billion. Then $600 Billion a year later, then $1.3 Billion, and it continues to expand. For another example, Bush recently voted an increase in funding for a health care program for which the Democrats promptly labeled Bush "anti-children." The program falls under the auspices of Medicaid and is called the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The federal government gives block grants to states to administer the program. The states backed by the Democrats increased the age group covered, expanding the program to cover more children and cost $35 Billion. The states continually expanded the program including more and more older "children" (including those children over 30 years of age).
3) You falsely assume such a program is inexpensive or cheap. It isn't. The Democrats wanted to expand the SCHIPS program from 6.6 Million people to 10 Million people and increase the cost from $35 Billion to $60 Billion.
So, that's about $6,000 per person. To cover all 300 Million people in the US under such a very basic program like SCHIPS would cost 1,800,000,000,000 or $1.8 TRILLION, or about 12% of the GDP.
And it's a basic program. Start the ever-continual expansions and it will end up costing $4 TRILLION (or 28% of the GDP in no time).
$6,000 per person? You can cover a family for less than that per year.
4) You falsely assume hospitals in the US are organized as efficiently as hospitals in Europe. That's wrong.
In the US just about every hospital offers open-heart surgery. In European countries, you may have to drive or take a train several hours to get to a hospital that offers open-heart surgery, because not every hospital does. Europeans have gone to great lengths to eliminate waste and inefficiency.
Every hospital does not need to offer open heart surgery, or child birth, or orthopeadic surgery or psychiatric care, or diet/weight loss programs.
In the US, inefficiency, in addition to collusion between hospital cartels, drives the price of health care up.
When several doctors attempted to open up a cardio care clinic specializing in open heart surgery, the Ohio legislature quickly moved to block it.
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Supporters say the new heart hospital which would charge $13,000 less than than any area hospital charges for open heart surgery could become a "center of excellence" for heart care in Greater Cincinnati.
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The cardio clinic can charge less because it isn't subsidizing money losing functions like pre-natal care, neo-natal care, geriatrics, orthopeadics, oncology, pediatrics, psychiatry, diabetes, internal medicine, endocrinology, sports medicine, diet and weight loss, and other losers.
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But the concept faces several challenges, including critics who say Cincinnati already has too many heart programs. The proposed hospital already has intensified a long-running debate among doctors, hospital administrators, business leaders and others about how health services should be provided in years to come.
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Translation: Some very wise doctors see the hand-writing on the wall. Hospitals are an anachronism and are unnecessary and unneeded in the modern world. Their existence is inherently costly and hospitals are the least efficient means of delivering health care services. Hospitals should follow Capitalist Theory and diversify and specialize to use resources efficiently and provide the best health care at the lowest cost.
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Much is at stake in this proposal, from the potential effects on Christ Hospital, where a $77 million cardiac wing is expected to open in November, to the economic development of Norwood.
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Translation: A member of a hospital cartel just forked out some bucks and needs to gouge a few thousands sick people to recover their money.
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"Profitable services, like heart, which are carved out of the full-service community hospital, will leave it with insufficient resources to meet the needs of the community for services like emergency, transplant and dialysis," Hanover said. John Prout, chief executive of the TriHealth hospital group, which includes open-heart programs at Good Samaritan and Bethesda North, said, "We don't believe the community needs another heart program."
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Translation: Our other programs are money losers and we need to charge prices that are exorbitant and excessive for open heart surgery to make up for losses in other hospital operations. [Note: TriHealth is an hospital cartel]
If you want to do an experiment, call around to each hospital in your Metropolitan Statistical Area and find out how many beds there are for newborn infants.
Add the total number of beds and multiply by 365. That'll give you the number of "bed-days."
The find out the number of children born in each county in your MSA. Add them together and multiply by 3 days. That's your newborn bed-days. Subtract that from the total number of bed-days.
That will tell you the number of beds that are over-capacity (and represent waste and inefficiency) for newborn infants.
Divide the number newborn bed days by the total bed-days and that will give you an approximate percentage of how much you're being over-charged for child-birth at hospitals.
In this area, it should only cost about $2,600 to have a baby, but because of waste and inefficiency, people are paying an average of $9,200.
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