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It is funny to me how so many people try to turn any huge problem into a one issue, one answer problem. There is not one issue with health care and there is not one answer. Health care costs have been insane for a long time for a lot of reasons. Over 20 years ago, we got a bill for $380,000 for our daughter's heart surgery. Included in that were things like $380 for a "diaper changing kit" I asked them what is that? "A diaper, a wipe, a pair of plastic gloves and a disposal bag." Then they charged for two people to change the diaper that was another thousand or so. "Why two people?" "Because we cannot risk the liability of having only one nurse involved. One does the change, the other witnesses that it was done right and makes notes so we have a record."
Then you have to look at why does that diaper changing kit with about $1.50 of things in it cost $380?
They can only use "approved" diaper changing kits bought from an approved source. That approved resource has to have a lot of liability insurance in place in case someone has an allergic reaction to the diaper or something. That approved source buys diapers from another source approved for hospital use. They also have big time liability insurance and they have mark up overhead etc to cover. The wipe comes form a different approved source as do the gloves and baggy. The hospital cannot just take glove they have all over the place (from yet another approved source with multiple layers of liability insurance and profit and overhead), they can only use the gloves that come in the approved diaper changing kit. Then of course the hospital has its layers of liability insurance, profit and overhead to cover. They also have to charge enough so that we or our insurance covers the costs of all the diaper changing kits for people who do not pay.
Next item on the bill my wife had a headache while at the hospital so they gave her some advil. $90 for two advil. She also had to see a doctor before they could give her advil. $250 to see the doctor.
The whole thing is a marvel of stupidity. It is exacerbated by a sue happy society and a society where people run to the ER because their child sneezed once.
Then of course there are a massive profits for big pharma who needs big profits to pay off the politicians so they can get away with continuing to charge 2000% of what they pay in other countries for the same medicines. They system is a disaster and the problems are many and integrated thoroughly into the system. However the politicians are afraid to attack the problems, but instead search for new ways to tax people that do not look like taxes, in order to continue to feed the corrupt, wasteful greedy system.
On the other hand we could switch to a system like Germany has where you go to the doctor with bronchitis, and the doctor tells to go home an drink tea. So you try a different doctor thinking a better doctor will prescribe some antibiotics or something, and get prescribed a different type of tea. You may not get better, but you probably will not die and you will get to enjoy a nice up of tea.
The whole thing is a marvel of stupidity. It is exacerbated by a sue happy society and a society where people run to the ER because their child sneezed once.
I am running out to work but even though I am a lawyer I couldn't agree more. People who are patients are "damaged goods" to begin with. Judges should throw more suits out before the discovery and jury stage. Judges aren't doing their job.
Last edited by toosie; 05-28-2017 at 02:22 PM..
Reason: Corrected typo per your request
Aesop's Fables contained a lot of truth. They compare and contrast very well indeed to the pointless nonsense fables typically told around here. Everywhere else in the developed world has managed to find better solutions to health care problems than the ones we have. Since 2010, we have finally been working to catch up. Trying in the meantime to dump the blame for everything on sick people is a sickness in and of itself.
By the way, despite the worthless rot you read in the disinformation media, the US is not a litigious society. People here are willing as in almost no place else on earth to forgive tortious acts as "honest mistakes." They'd of course like to be reimbursed by someone for necessary out-of-pocket expenses, but they are most often willing to let it go at that and a handshake. What actually has the civil courts clogged up with years worth of cases are suits by one business against another business. Just another form of corporate greed there, the latter being also implicated in publication of the worthless disinformational rot already mentioned just above.
Aesop's Fables contained a lot of truth. They compare and contrast very well indeed to the pointless nonsense fables typically told around here. Everywhere else in the developed world has managed to find better solutions to health care problems than the ones we have. Since 2010, we have finally been working to catch up. Trying in the meantime to dump the blame for everything on sick people is a sickness in and of itself.
By the way, despite the worthless rot you read in the disinformation media, the US is not a litigious society. People here are willing as in almost no place else on earth to forgive tortious acts as "honest mistakes." They'd of course like to be reimbursed by someone for necessary out-of-pocket expenses, but they are most often willing to let it go at that and a handshake. What actually has the civil courts clogged up with years worth of cases are suits by one business against another business. Just another form of corporate greed there, the latter being also implicated in publication of the worthless disinformational rot already mentioned just above.
Have you ever been in a courtroom, or seen a court's docket?
Just asking because you are completely wrong at least as far as the 1000 or so courtrooms i have spent time in.
I'm for eliminating employer health insurance and replacing it with employers funding health savings accounts(HSA's).
Every individual/family would shop ins(preferably high deductible hospital/catastro). We would also go back to paying out of pocket for most care, which brings back market forces.
How to cut medical costs - simple answer:
Before
Patient pays => [horde of parasites, overhead, clerk, office manager, assistants, taxes, insurance, etc] => Physician.
After
Patient pays => Physician.
I'm for eliminating employer health insurance and replacing it with employers funding health savings accounts(HSA's).
Every individual/family would shop ins(preferably high deductible hospital/catastro). We would also go back to paying out of pocket for most care, which brings back market forces.
This kind of post is an example of the kind of ignorance that lead to the problem we have in the first place.
There is a hierarchy or order to things. That hierarchy went like this:
1. Medical care was ineffective for many years. Therefore, the cost of medical care was low.
2. Around 1900, science began to lead to greater understanding of health and disease and medical care gradually became much more effective.
3. As medical care became more effective it became more expensive and individual people were less prepared to deal with medical emergencies.
4. Largely, in response to #3, we began the emergence of the first private insurance plans. Though, in the beginning, many were called "hospitalization plans".
5. As health care costs rose, more private health insurance plans were offered. The formation of unions and World War II played an important role in the expansion of private health insurance.
6. As costs rose, private health insurers began to shun or avoid certain groups altogether. The elderly were considered a poor risk because they would require more health care than younger people would. By 1965, this created a serious problem. Some private health insurers actually called upon Congress to insure the elderly because they could not do so at a profit. Thus, Medicare was born.
7. It was realized another group was still left out of the system. The poor generally were unemployed and lacked access to private health insurance plans. Communities attempted to deal with this by offering the poor medical care for free at public hospitals. However, the cost of providing this care was crushing many communities. Many of these communities called upon Congress to do something about it. Out of this, Congress passed legislation creating Medicaid.
8. The ACA was the result of health care costs reaching such a high level that many ordinary middle income people could not afford health insurance.
Do you see the progression here and why it occurred?
Health insurance in America has simply been a response to high medical costs. It is not the reason for them.
How are you going to pass a law that prevents employers or others from offering to sell health insurance? The answer is that you aren't. It can't be done. If people want to offer these plans they can do so.
People who argue against health insurance are trying to argue that the reason that medical care costs are out of control is because we don't allow the free market to function. The problem is that isn't why these costs are out of control. It has to do with many things, but first among them are advances in science and technology that poor and sometimes even middle class people cannot keep pace with. People earning $12 an hour cannot afford the system that we have created. Its just that simple.
Someday, America will follow the lead of every other nation in this world and create some kind of system of truly universal health insurance. However, I'm concluding its still a number of years away. Believing that health care can be bought and sold in the marketplace like chickens or television sets only continues the ignorance.
Watch costs PLUMMET as the medical industry resets itself so that average people can pay for services.
Watch unnecessary, costly test and diagnoses disappear, and be replaced with common sense AND more informed consumers who are now tasked with thinking critically about their own medical issues instead of relying on doctor / insurance (doctor told me to and well insurance pays for THIS not THAT. So that's what I will do.).
Watch costs PLUMMET as the medical industry resets itself so that average people can pay for services.
Watch unnecessary, costly test and diagnoses disappear, and be replaced with common sense AND more informed consumers who are now tasked with thinking critically about their own medical issues instead of relying on doctor / insurance (doctor told me to and well insurance pays for THIS not THAT. So that's what I will do.).
Watch people without insurance being unable to afford any health care at all.
That's the fallacy in this thinking. Insurance exists because of high health care costs. Not high health care costs exist because of insurance.
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