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A lot of that is due to hospitals & insurance companies having to cover their butts because of the litigational buzzards are always circling overhead. Lawsuits alone shot up healthcare to the extreme levels we have (this is not to say that some lawsuits are not legitimate).
Why? Aren't tort reforms helping? Could you provide numbers to back up your claims?
Yes I did, did you happen to read the part after that. The part that said there is no correlation between insurers saving money in the form of reduced payouts, and fewer suits and declining premiums.
Quote:
"Other research indicates that although medical malpractice caps reduce the burden on insurers,they do not alleviate the growing problem of skyrocketing insurance premiums. One report reveals that limitations on medical malpractice awards produced payout averages 15.7% lower than those of states without caps between 1991 and 2002. This statistic is true despite the fact that many of the states did not institute the limitations until near the end of the reporting period. Meanwhile, the median annual premium in states with caps increased an alarming 48.2%. Surprisingly, the median annual premium in states without caps increased more slowly: by 35.9%. In other words, the median medical malpractice insurance premiums were actually higher in states with caps. This is contrary to the goal of the limitations on medical malpractice awards."
As I said, 'medical malpractice' is mostly an easy scapegoat for insurers when they need to raise premiums for reasons unrelated to lawsuits. (e.g. declining enrollment and poor investing choices) To be fair how many people do you think actually know the statutes regarding medical malpractice in their states and are going to ask insurers why they need to raise premiums despite the fact their states have enacted caps?
Last edited by Randomstudent; 03-04-2011 at 03:13 PM..
What do you expect you have a health insurance industry that adds TEN OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS of transactions cost and overhead to the health system.
The crazy part is many Americans want this system. Also, they don't organize themselves better to put more pressure on insurers to lower cost.
Countries like Germany have a health care model that uses for-profit insurance companies. Britain and France use private health insurance to provide a supplementary level of care. It can work but the insurers need to get with the program and become part of the solution and not part of the problem.
The reforms if they are implemented pending the current court battles will not be fully implimented until 2014.
Tort reform is already on the books in the majority of states and has been for years which means state courts are bound by it. The only way to really go further is to restrict compensatory damages at which point you might as well not have torts as a remedy at all regardless of whether a suit is legitimate or not, of course other then doctors no one wants this.
Personally if I had my druthers I would make medical malpractice into a system similar to workers comp. to remove insurers and lawyers from the situation as much as possible.
Last edited by Randomstudent; 03-04-2011 at 03:28 PM..
We definitely need to improve our system, but life expectancy is not a good measure. There are far too many variables that play into that to draw any conclusions about the healthcare system.
2.) A true health care system should be focused as much on health as disease.
1.) The title of the thread is "USA: world's most inefficient health care ?" Sub-Saharan Africa is included in "world's"
2.) A true health care system should be focused as much on health as disease unless, of course, the citizens refuse to allow enough tax revenue to be collected to pay for it.
Countries like Germany have a health care model that uses for-profit insurance companies. Britain and France use private health insurance to provide a supplementary level of care. It can work but the insurers need to get with the program and become part of the solution and not part of the problem.
Most Germans are on a on a public health care plan funded by the state.
Currently 85% of the population is covered by a basic health insurance plan provided by statute, which provides a standard level of coverage. The remainder opt for private health insurance, which frequently offers additional benefits. According to the World Health Organization, Germany's health care system was 77% government-funded and 23% privately funded as of 2004.[3]
I don't see private American health insurance companies giving up their role in health care without a savage fight. There is simply too damn much monehy to be made.
I'm living in a suburb of Osaka, Japan. I had outpatient cryosurgery yesterday for actinic keratosis. Cost me 1100 yen total (About fifteen bucks). If I were back in the States, I`d still be filling out forms -- and I`d be getting mysterious little bills for a couple hundred for band-aids three years from now.
Something is seriously wrong with healthcare in the US. The way things are headed, we're all going to end up just handing over all our money to Big Med (or Fed Med, take your pick), and receiving a weekly allowance for everything else....
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