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It would be really difficult for the average person to pay for their healthcare throughout their lifetime without insurance. You never know when you will need to spend thousands on an emergency appendectomy or a heart catheterization or something. A lot of people gripe about paying a 25 buck co-pay to see their doctor, but the doctor's visit usually costs a lot more than that when you add labs.
Well, to hear the poster above you tell it, an emergency appy is your own damn fault, and G*d forbid you develop heart disease. One of the biggest risk factors for heart disease is sex-male. Maybe all you guys could get sex change operations so you don't get heart disease.
How could you possibly do "food reform?" Taxes on high calorie items and bans on certain types of items are difficult to implement. I doubt that you can go much further than something like a ban on trans fats.
Like I said, ending corn subsidies would be a start. The reason why we have so much high fructose corn syrup in our foods is because of the corn subsidies. Unhealthy foods are priced artificially low because of these subsidies, which discourages people from eating fresh fruits & veggies.
Other ideas for food reform:
--Reform school lunch programs. No crappy food allowed.
--Disallow the purchases of soda, chips, pretzels, & other junk/processed foods with food stamps.
--Give employers health insurance discounts for only serving healthy foods in their workplaces (no soda & vending machines with junk in them).
These are just a few ideas that are very doable without being draconian. I'm sure there are dozens more.
Well, to hear the poster above you tell it, an emergency appy is your own damn fault, and G*d forbid you develop heart disease. One of the biggest risk factors for heart disease is sex-male. Maybe all you guys could get sex change operations so you don't get heart disease.
lol.... if I could take a couple swings of a knife and eat healthy foods to fix my defective heart problem I would be right on it. BTW... im no where near 40,overweight, or smoke.
Out of all these posts are there any answers here? RNs aren't over paid, , malpractice law suits shouldn't be banned.
Could the answer be a lack of competition? or is it everyone excepts the same costs everywhere?
lol@someone thinking nurses making 40-60 dollars an hour is the reason medical costs are so high
I agree, this posting is laughable. I am a nurse and I paid my dues and got my BSN. My argument would be that nurses are well underpaid....no one complains about the pay MDs receive (specifically specialists), so why is it that the individuals who put in the most time and hands on care with the patients...are suddenly the ones who get "blamed" for the sh*t that hits the fan?!? The reason for healthcare costs lies in our legislations (or lack thereof) when it comes to the business that is healthcare (i.e. hospitals, insurance, fragmented medicine with all of these so called specialists, etc)....NOT nurses and/or those few MDs and NPs who decide to specialize in internal medicine/family medicine. The reason nurses are being told to go back to school to obtain their BSNs, MSNs, and Doctorates aren't necessarily so we can be "money" hungry and add to anyone's deficit...it is so we can finally be taken "seriously" (according to society's academic standards) and appreciated in this country for the amount and quality of work we perform on a daily basis WITHOUT appreciation or glamour. If you were to look at the billing and coding side of this healthcare argument, you would see that it is actually cheaper to be seen and treated by an NP or nurse midwife than it is to see an MD...so I would say our salaries have nothing to do with creating the dent that healthcare has placed in society.
Yes, I actually do prefer brown rice over white. It actually has more flavor. Same with pasta. I buy whole whet. It actually tastes a lot better.
But I do agree with you that we need real food reform. But reform starts with US. If Americans would become more discriminating customers, much of the crap that passes for food would go away. Of course, we also have to be more active as citizens and push our government to change its food policies (such as not subsidizing corn so heavily). In short, Americans have to stop waiting around for some magical "other" to fix things.
It would also help if there was a direct financial incentive to eat healthy/live healthy lifestyles. As it is right now, most people pay the same insurance costs regardless of their lifestyle habits. Personally, I wish we would go back to paying directly for our health care out of pocket. That would get rid of so much of the bloat, inefficiency, and unhealthy lifestyle habits. But everyone is afraid of that, unfortunately...But back in 1950, we paid something like 5% of GDP toward health care. Now, it's more like 18%.
ftr i eat things like brown rice and lentils and stuff but most people don't and i can agree with you that that might be a better option (paying out of pocket) i also like the libertarian idea of getting gov't out of it and only having private companies again...a lot has changed since 1950 my mom was born in 1947 and can remember a lot of doctors coming by the house and would take pretty much whatever you had for payment if you was poor...of course it's a small country city but still i can't see a doctor taking two dollars if that's all you have today...i don't think he/she could afford to anyway even if (s)he wanted to
Like I said, ending corn subsidies would be a start. The reason why we have so much high fructose corn syrup in our foods is because of the corn subsidies. Unhealthy foods are priced artificially low because of these subsidies, which discourages people from eating fresh fruits & veggies.
Other ideas for food reform:
--Reform school lunch programs. No crappy food allowed.
--Disallow the purchases of soda, chips, pretzels, & other junk/processed foods with food stamps.
--Give employers health insurance discounts for only serving healthy foods in their workplaces (no soda & vending machines with junk in them).
These are just a few ideas that are very doable without being draconian. I'm sure there are dozens more.
well schools get paid by those companies to put them in and people go crazy even at the mention that maybe they shouldn't be allowed to take money from these companies...obama did that mostly because of FL but schools and their students are having a fit about the school lunches seems a whole lot of people have problem with it...i agree on the food stamps thing but it'll still be awhile before that happens i think...the best way i think is to add competition to health care...when people have to pay their own insurance co-pays all the way around with out getting any help from their work or gov't the market will go down...it'll have to because of the law of supply and demand if no one can afford it then they go bankrupt
detach health insurance from employment, make people get it themselves on the free market. let the price adjusted based on their health/habits.
I agree that detaching health insurance from employment would help promote a competitive market for health insurance.
Having the price adjusted based on health will not be possible under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). When ACA takes effect, insurance companies will no longer be able to deny or limit coverage or charge higher premiums to anyone because of a preexisting condition. I would think that smoking is not considered a preexisting condition but lung cancer is.
As was pointed out, the numbers are hard to get. Also, most docs charge very much the same rates, some a little higher, some a little lower.
i have no idea why this is considered complicated for you. if a patient actually had to pay the bill out of pocket, those numbers would no longer be hard to get. price would become a much bigger part of the decision and the customers would demand to know the prices.
you cant use today's scenario of doctors not making their pricing easily available because today patients dont care about the pricing.
I agree, this posting is laughable. I am a nurse and I paid my dues and got my BSN. My argument would be that nurses are well underpaid....no one complains about the pay MDs receive (specifically specialists), so why is it that the individuals who put in the most time and hands on care with the patients...are suddenly the ones who get "blamed" for the sh*t that hits the fan?!? The reason for healthcare costs lies in our legislations (or lack thereof) when it comes to the business that is healthcare (i.e. hospitals, insurance, fragmented medicine with all of these so called specialists, etc)....NOT nurses and/or those few MDs and NPs who decide to specialize in internal medicine/family medicine. The reason nurses are being told to go back to school to obtain their BSNs, MSNs, and Doctorates aren't necessarily so we can be "money" hungry and add to anyone's deficit...it is so we can finally be taken "seriously" (according to society's academic standards) and appreciated in this country for the amount and quality of work we perform on a daily basis WITHOUT appreciation or glamour. If you were to look at the billing and coding side of this healthcare argument, you would see that it is actually cheaper to be seen and treated by an NP or nurse midwife than it is to see an MD...so I would say our salaries have nothing to do with creating the dent that healthcare has placed in society.
Damn right. We pay more for our health care than most any other country. Nurses are paid decent in many of those countries as well. The problem is the bureaucracy and the business, not the livable wages that nurses command. Let's not discount one other possibility... Maybe the problem isn't that nurses are overpaid... Maybe the problem is everyone else is underpaid!
Nurses definitely earn their keep. I went to nursing school for a year and a half and realized I didn't want to do that for any wage. My hat goes off to them, but that's one stressful, rigorous profession. Being that the attrition rate is so high, I imagine you have to pay nurses pretty darn good to keep them coming back. Even if I decided to complete my schooling, I can't image I would have stayed in that profession for more then 5 years.
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