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Genetics and lifestyle are very important factors.
But modern and higher tech medical treatments have very impressively increased the lifespan of so many people since the 60's. Genetics haven't had much time to change, and lifestyles if anything are worse.
You present NO evidence to support your statement. Yes, lifespans have gone up. But the question is why.
Go to your life insurance company and apply for a policy. They will ask you all kinds of questions about your family history, your weight, your activities, your consumption of drugs and tobacco, your risky habits and then they offer to sell you a policy.
They NEVER ask you about your health insurance. Why is that? Because genetics and lifestyle are way more important than your health insurance.
I haven't had time to read all the posts. But with Medicare we have had in place massive price controls for over 30 years. Especially with DRG based inpatient pricing.
This is true. A third of all Americans get health care under government price controls.
Again, please name the 'government regulations' that are burdening healthcare providers. Are you sure you don't mean the burden private insurance companies are imposing on them with the complicated referral system and confusing billing codes?
Obamacare alone has 2500 pages in the law itself and the Obama administration has added over 20,000 pages of additional regulations.
THis might get you started;
The array of regulations that govern health care can seem overwhelming to people who work in the industry. Almost every aspect of the field is overseen by one regulatory body or another, and sometimes by several. Health care professionals may feel that they spend more time complying with rules that direct their work than actually doing the work itself.
My book describes an underlying logic behind the bewildering regulatory maze. The tangled web of health care regulation arises largely from a set of confrontations between opposing interests that created the system. Fortunately, an ongoing process of compromise keeps things in balance. To understand these forces is to appreciate why the complexity may actually serve a purpose.
The pervasive nature of health care regulation stems from the fundamental concerns that are at stake. Most observers acknowledge that some form of oversight is needed when factors as essential as life and health are involved. Even those who are especially suspicious of heavy-handed government bureaucracy see a public interest in some form of external supervision of this field. Policy debates, for the most part, swirl not around whether oversight should exist but, instead, around the way it should be structured.
However, the present regulatory structure is neither uniform nor consistent. A broad range of regulatory bodies and programs apply in different ways to various aspects of the industry. Health care regulations are developed and enforced by all levels of government—federal, state, and local—and also by a large assortment of private organizations. At times, they operate without coordination.
I got a better idea. Cut out the middleman (insurance companies) that make exorbitant profits off of healthcare. How about one non-profit middleman to disperse benefits.
Again, please name the 'government regulations' that are burdening healthcare providers. Are you sure you don't mean the burden private insurance companies are imposing on them with the complicated referral system and confusing billing codes?
A recent biggie in the provider burden category is the EMR. Hospitals and doctors offices have spent many $B's with technological compliance these past 5 years. And the complicated billing codes are central Gov't based. The insurers just follow all this along. The referrals vary from private payer to another, but are no more complicated than staff getting approvals.
You present NO evidence to support your statement. Yes, lifespans have gone up. But the question is why.
Go to your life insurance company and apply for a policy. They will ask you all kinds of questions about your family history, your weight, your activities, your consumption of drugs and tobacco, your risky habits and then they offer to sell you a policy.
They NEVER ask you about your health insurance. Why is that? Because genetics and lifestyle are way more important than your health insurance.
A major reason lifespans have gone up is from advanced medical technologies. Especially obvious for seniors. How do I know? I've been an internist caring for Medicare patients for 40 years now, and have witnessed first hand the improvements. Including my wife and I, both of whom would be long since dead without new medical technologies.
When I arrived here at my current practice in 1981, mainly cardiology, my typical heart failure patient had a roughly 50% chance of not making it past the next 6 mo. With new meds like ACE inhibitors, after 10 years 90% of them were still with us.
Life insurance companies have their our algorithms and formulas. Those with coverage may tend to be sicker and riskier to start with. Those without may have less need. So it might seem in many cases that the life insurance companies might charge more for those with HC coverage.
A "shortage" of medical services is something I won't mind having, if it saves me from having to pay 1000's for crappy care. I mean, do we really need all these dying centers around (erm, hospitals, I mean)?
I think as a country, we should strive to reduce health care costs to no more then 5% of GDP. We need to enable people to become their own doctor and take care of their own health, rather than depending on costly drugs which don't seem to do much good anyhow.
I'd love to see the government break the backs of the insurance companies, and then the medical "industry." The free market just doesn't work when it comes to medical care. This is one sector of the economy that needs to be nonprofit and controlled, so we can spend more of our money on things we want, instead of wasting it on medical crap that never really works.
Do you place any value on healthcare or your health?
Do you place any value on healthcare or your health?
Yes, I do, but it needs to be an amount I can afford. Having health care isn't worth it if I can't afford a home, or food, or any of the other things I need to live. It's common sense, really.
I'd love to see what would happen if medical costs keep zooming upward to the point where Medicare goes broke - can you imagine the outcry if millions of seniors suddenly lost their healthcare benefits?
I've always said that the day that people start dying on the sidewalks in front of hospitals is the day we have universal health care.
I got a better idea. Cut out the middleman (insurance companies) that make exorbitant profits off of healthcare. How about one non-profit middleman to disperse benefits.
What do you consider exorbitant profits?
Here are links to the profit margins of three large health insurance companies, please tell me which ones are exorbitant.
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