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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.
I think every company has some evil person who's only job is to make the billing as incomprehensible as possible. A friend of my mothers who works in a billing department got a medical bill and she couldn't understand it. Took the same bill to her insurance company and they couldn't figure out...
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.
1) Doesn't your comment strike you as wildly tangential to the argument at hand especially as the original post did not talk about the health care in Sub-Saharan Africa and was plainly on the benefit/cost ratio of health care?
2) What is a "true" health care system? Also, what is this second point supposed to mean? It doesn't seem specific enough without knowing what you are trying to make a reference to.
Seriously, how can you have that debate, which I would welcome, when you have the right wing (and quite a few posters on CD) increasingly calling for "charity" care as the solution. Can you imagine having to depend on charity for health insurance. Do they have any idea of the cost of cancer care, for example. Ludicrous.
You would be amazed at the amount of people on here who have told me just to call the American Cancer Society and all of my financial problems would be solved. That is if they're not telling me it's my "personal responsibility" that's lacking. I'm a 23 year old with a cancer that strikes literally out of nowhere- there's nothing that one can do to prevent it and they really don't know where it comes from. I graduated from college 8 months ago and have only been in my job for 4 months and spent most of that time paying off the debts I accrued moving across the country and that had piled up while unemployed in between college graduation and getting hired.
I am working full time through 8 months of chemo and 2 months of radiation- something that is not advisable but there is not a social safety net to help out with. If I was to take the time that I needed to, you know, get better, I would be getting chemo out of a homeless shelter. Forget that I would lose my job and therefore lose my health insurance.
Just in diagnosing my cancer, my bills amounted to well over my yearly income. My copays are at about 2 week's pay currently. 15 minutes with my oncologist is billed for over $600. This is absolutely insane.
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.
1.) So which sub-Saharan African country's health care system is more efficient than ours? What kind of care do their people receive for the $$$?
2.) Even our Federal government can manage a system WAY more efficiently than the bloated mess I currently pay in to. I'd happily pay more taxes, get rid of the the ginormous amount of money I currently pay, AND have better care. If the rest of the world can do it, so can we.
Why not try to make ours better? Blind flattery for a failed system is less patriotic than constructive criticism.
I think we have a pretty good one the way it is. I don't think it needs to improve much. It's certainly not going to be made better by nationalizing it so everyone can get mediocre care.
It is inefficient because of all the frivolous lawsuits and patients coming in for needless treatment... the consumption of that creates a vacuum for people who need treatment but can't afford it because your AVERAGE taxpayer is consuming it... so you blame the healthcare industry which gives you what you want? Typical...
I think we have a pretty good one the way it is. I don't think it needs to improve much. It's certainly not going to be made better by nationalizing it so everyone can get mediocre care.
You are right, in terms of medical outcomes it is pretty good. The problem is that it costs twice as much per capita as other health systems which offer similar outcomes. That is what this thread is discussing ... not whether it is medically good or not but why it costs so much.
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