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Originally Posted by djmilf
That's what Mircea is claiming. And according to Mircea, Europe utilizes more clinics and less hospitals for a substantial cost savings.
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Originally Posted by djmilf
But one very telling point in Mircea's very long post was that clinics are more efficient than hospitals at delivering health care.
It doesn't matter that a hospital has an electric bill of $400K each month.
Tear down the hospital and replace it with one or more clinics.
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Clinics don't have an $8.5 Million parking garage with security cameras and private police patrolling the parking garage, and another private police officer monitoring the cameras in the parking garage.
Everything costs, and those costs add up.
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Good Samaritan Hospital - one of Greater Cincinnati's biggest - plans to spend $122 million on expansion and renovation over the next five years.The project will include an eight-story patient-care tower to be added to the front of an existing tower along Dixmyth Avenue, rebuilding a 400-space parking garage off Clifton Avenue, demolishing several houses along Dixmyth to make more parking lots, and moving several services around inside the existing 12.5-acre complex.
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Good Sam to expand, renew
Who is paying that $122 Million?
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• The number of cardiac catheterization labs - where patients get a wide range of diagnostic tests and treatments for heart disease - will grow from three to five.[same article]
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That service should be done at a specialty clinic at substantial cost-savings.
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Across Dixmyth, several old houses that TriHealth already owns will be torn down to build more parking lots.
The house demolition and some of the internal moves will be completed this year. Then comes the parking garage reconstruction [same article]
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Trihealth.
That is one of two Hospital Cartels.
The Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati is the other Cartel.
The hospitals collude (illegal) to fix prices (illegal).
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A threat to big centers? If the pilot project succeeds, every suburban heart attack victim who gets treatment in places like Mercy Mount Airy would be a case lost to central city centers like Christ, Good Samaritan or University hospitals.
"The financial issues are real. This is already a very political process," says Rodney Reider, Mercy Mount Airy's president.
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Heart attack strategy: fast care
Health care a very political process?
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Originally Posted by djmilf
The fact that the more cost efficient clinics aren't reducing the number of hospitals seems to indicate to me that the health care industry doesn't run according to free-market principles.
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Cartels, by definition, are anti-Free Market.
The AHA (American Hospital Association) is anti-Free Market.
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Originally Posted by workingclasshero
clinics are more efficient????
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Yes, of course they are.
A cardio-pulmonary clinic doesn't have a multi-million dollar multi-story parking garage, doesn't have a neo-natal ward, a pre-natal ward, a Chief of OB-GYN, a chief OB-GYN resident, a staff of OB-GYN residents, a staff of nurses of varying levels of skill trained in OB-GYN, or any of the $Millions worth of equipment necessary to staff a "birthing center" or the technicians required to operate the $Millions worth of equipment and none of that floor space has to be maintained and serviced by janitorial and maintenance staff.
A cardio-pulmonary clinic doesn't have psych-ward, the special pharmacy used only to store psychotropic drugs, with a pharmacy head, and an assistant and pharmaceutical technicians to work in the special pharmacy used only to store psychotropic drugs, a Chief of Psychiatry, a chief Psychiatric resident, a staff of psychiatry residents, a staff of nurses of varying levels of skill trained in psychiatry, or any of the $Millions worth of equipment necessary to staff a "psych ward" or the technicians required to operate the $Millions worth of equipment and none of that floor space has to be maintained and serviced by janitorial and maintenance staff.
A cardio-pulmonary clinic doesn't have an orthopedic-ward, a Chief of Orthopedics, a chief Orthopedic resident, a staff of orthopedic residents, a staff of nurses of varying levels of skill trained in orthopedics, or any of the $Millions worth of equipment necessary to staff an orthopedic unit or the technicians required to operate the $Millions worth of equipment and none of that floor space has to be maintained and serviced by janitorial and maintenance staff.
A cardio-pulmonary clinic doesn't have an pediatric-ward, a Chief of Pediatrics, a chief Pediatric resident, a staff of pediatric residents, a staff of nurses of varying levels of skill trained in pediatrics, or any of the $Millions worth of equipment necessary to staff an orthopedic unit or the technicians required to operate the $Millions worth of equipment and none of that floor space has to be maintained and serviced by janitorial and maintenance staff.
A cardio-pulmonary clinic doesn't have a neuro-surgery, a Chief of Neurosurgery, a chief Neurosurgery resident, a staff of neurosurgery residents, a staff of nurses of varying levels of skill trained in neurosurgey, or any of the $Millions worth of equipment necessary to staff an orthopedic unit or the technicians required to operate the $Millions worth of equipment and none of that floor space has to be maintained and serviced by janitorial and maintenance staff.
A cardio-pulmonary clinic doesn't have a oncology ward, a Chief of Oncology, a chief Oncological resident, a staff of oncology residents, a staff of nurses of varying levels of skill trained in oncology, or any of the $Millions worth of equipment necessary to staff an orthopedic unit or the technicians required to operate the $Millions worth of equipment and none of that floor space has to be maintained and serviced by janitorial and maintenance staff.
And you can lather, rinse and repeat for geriatrics, diet/weight loss, physical therapy, internal medicine, dermatology, etc etc etc.
Figure it out yet?
If a company has a production, packaging and distribution sections, and the distribution section is losing money hand over fist, what does the company do?
Does the company slash the wages of workers in the production or packaging sections to make up for the losses in the distribution section? Does the company raise the prices of goods to make up for its losses in the distribution section? Does the company cut services to make up for the losses in the distribution section?
No, the company shuts down, sells or spins off the distribution section.
If an hospital has a section that is losing money hand over fist, let's say their "birthing center" has a really bad reputation, lwhat does the hospital do?
It raises the rates of all of its other services to make up for the heavy losses it is taking.
When you go to a hospital for a tonsillectomy, you're ordering a small cheese pizza, but the hospital is charging you for a double-extra large pizza with double toppings for everything.
And you people think that's the greatest thing since sliced bread.
It's been a few years, but a friend and his wife had a child in hospital and they charged her $17 for 2 freaking Tylenol tablets. I saw the bill. The other thing was $6 for one of those little purse-sized packages of tissue paper.
I guess you all think that's cool.
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Originally Posted by workingclasshero
you mean crappy assembly line care
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No, it's very personalized care.
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Originally Posted by pghquest
Thats a lie..
While Social Security has more money coming in then their expenses, thats ONLY because they dont count FUTURE liabilities.
its a ponzi scheme, people are in JAIL for doing the EXACT same thing.
You cant IGNORE future cost liabilities and proclaim you have a profit..
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It's not a lie. There was a surplus at the end of each fiscal year. That money would have defrayed future liabilities, except Congress spent it all and now Congress will have to spend money to get that money back, assuming it can actually do that.
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Originally Posted by workingclasshero
wow, I thought I was long winded
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You didn't get into this mess overnight. This is a Nightmare on Hell Street that has been going for 70 years, ever since FDR slammed a Wage & Price Freeze on everyone and since employers were not allowed to give raises to their employees because FDR said so, the employers started offering benefits. That's how "health insurance" ended up with your employer.
That Nightmare continues to the 1970s until the Perfect Storm: doctors as hospital administrators (they might have been great surgeons but they sucked as businessmen) plus new diagnostic technology (thanks to the trickle-down effect from military and space programs) plus Americans healthier than at any time ever in US history.
So your idiot doctors are buy all of this brand spanking new technology that cost over $1 Million then, imagine what it would cost now adjusted for general inflation, and there was no one to use that technology.
So the hospitals went bankrupt because they spent all their money on new technology and couldn't even break even. We had 4 hospitals close here and 2 were forced to merge to survive.
It was the "health insurance" companies that saved the hospitals.
That's why you went from 16 "health insurance" companies to more than 800 in just 6 years. Well, Carter and the Democrats made a few changes to some laws in banking and insurance in 1978 that helped that along.
If you want a Euro-style single payer health care system, you're going to have to close about 65% of your hospitals. There's just no way around it.
You can have open-heart surgery in any of 19 hospitals here. Not so in Germany. You might have to drive 4 hours to get to a hospital that performs open heart surgery. That's why if you were a member of the US military and your child or spouse had any type of heart condition, you could only be based in the Kaiserslautern-Landstuhl region. Why? Because that's the only place where you have both a US military hospital and German hospital that can perform open heart surgery.
If you were based in Bremerhaven, and your child or spouse suddenly had an incident, it would be a problem because the US military hospital in Bremerhaven wasn't equipped for open-heart surgery, and none of the cities in the area, Bremen, Cuxhaven, Wilhelmshaven, Olendorf et al can do it. You have to go to Hamburg, which is a four hour drive (at 90+ mph all the way).
Those machines costs $Millions and they cost $100,000s to maintain each year. Europeans coordinate their health care services to eliminate the redundancy that exists in the US health care system and it produces substantial cost savings.
The great irony is that you have a Socialist health care system. The only difference is that the agent of Socialism is not the government, its the "health insurance" companies and the hospital cartels.
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Originally Posted by Katiana
Your links show that some places are contracting out. They don't show that it's been done more cost-effectively. In fact, they don't show much of anything. The last one is pure advertising.
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The prison sale would bring in an estimated $200 million for the state, plus a biennial savings calculated at $27 million in operating costs because two state-operated institutions will be turned over to private operators.
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Kasich's budget slashes aid to local governments | The Columbus Dispatch
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“Two Utah doctors were whistleblowers in Columbia/HCA fraud .... “Hospitals owned by Quorum said to overbill by $50 million,” The New York Times, 2/3/99. .... “Omnicare pays $5.3m settlement,” Ursula Miller, Cincinnati Enquirer, 4/22/98. ... Genesee Valley Cardiothoracic Group: The Rochester cardiac surgery group ...
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Imagine the fraud in a single payer system.
I'm still waiting for the Big Brains to figure out who is going to make up the difference in your single payer scheme.
To recap: Your current system has 3 components:
1) contributions made by employers;
2) the premiums paid by employees; and
3) the money from investors and stockholders
That is where the money comes from in your system. If you go to a single payer government system, then how will you make up for the loss of investors?
Currently, your health care is a little over $4 TRILLION of your GDP. That money comes from:
1) contributions made by employers;
2) the premiums paid by employees;
3) the money from investors and stockholders;
4) the government through Medicare and Medicaid.
So, I ask again, where will you get the money contributed by the stockholders and investors, who will be eliminated when you go to a single-payer system?
There's only two sources:
1) Slam the employers and force them to pay the amounts invested by investors (and watch your employer slash your wages or reduce your future raises or eliminate/reduce other benefits you receive); or
2) Slam the employees and force them to pay more than they are currently paying in premiums to make up for lost investor money (and watch your disposable income shrink);
3) split the burden between the employer and employee and make each pay more.
A fourth option would be raising taxes on everyone. Investors currently dump about $500 Billion to $750 Billion in to your health insurance companies. Consider that based on the 2011 Budget, the government will only collect $2.17 TRILLION in tax revenues.
You have to increase taxes to raise another $500 Billion to $750 Billion. That's a monster tax hike.
What about your seed?
If you all think your current "health insurance" system operates on a money-in/money-out scheme, you're all wrong.
If you're starting a "health insurance" company, you think you're going to issue $100 Billion in policies and then collect premiums and use that as the pay-off?
Wrong answer. You'll be bankrupt within 90 days, as soon as the first claims are filed.
You'll need at least $50 Billion in starter funds just to start.
So, Big Brains, where is the US government going to get the money for its seed pool?
What, you gonna borrow $1 TRILLION? And what, just tack that onto your National Debt? Oh, please do. The faster you go bankrupt the sooner you'll close your freaking military bases and get the hell out of my country.
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