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The free market does work and here's an example...Until the gov't plays hardball with the pharamceuticals and hospitals - no insurance change will make things better for the American taxpayer.
You're saying two different things: you're promoting a free-market approach to health care, but then you say that the govt needs to play hardball with pharmaceutical companies and hospital systems. I'm not trying to having a go at you; for the record, I agree that the U.S. gov needs to advocate for citizens re: drugs and hospital care. But to do so means it's not a true free market.
The bottom quarter of this society do not have sufficient economic output to warrant extensive medical intervention. They need to be humanely put down.
If you actually earned anything on your own even one day in your life, you'd understand.
Try it once- you just might like it
I own a business and pay taxes (and my husband has a regular job and pays taxes), which I happily do in order to increase the odds that someone less fortunate than me can get their baby vaccinated or have treatment for strep throat before it turns into scarlet fever or get chemotherapy. So your theory is not a good one.
As for a solution to the healthcare conundrum, I'd like to see universal health care for things like major surgeries, cancer treatments, stays in the hospital, etc. Those are the types of vital care that cause families of nearly all income levels to have to file for bankruptcy. For preventative care, I'd like to see more of the direct primary care model that we are so fortunate to have in our community. For my family of four, we pay $165 per month to have virtually unlimited visits to a family doctor in my city. Well-woman care, regular checkups, sick visits, visits for chronic diseases, weight-loss services, etc. are all "covered." Flu shots are $10. This group has agreements with various imaging places and physical therapists and some other specialists so their patients get low prices as long as they pay that day. For example, I needed an ultrasound on my leg for a bruise that wasn't healing and it cost me something like $175. They didn't bill my high-deductible plan (which wouldn't have covered it anyway). The physical therapist charges $35ish for a visit, which is comparable to what a typical copay would be. And you can get all of your routine bloodwork done for $45 if you don't have ACA-compliant insurance (which covers it).
All but the poorest individuals would be able to afford these services. For the poorest, I'm fully in support of Medicaid.
Note that this does NOT negate the need for at least a high-deductible plan. We have a "bronze" ACA plan that doesn't really cover anything that we need 99.9% of the time, but it's there should we need it. I've had a completely healthy child develop a heart infection for no discernible reason and we spent a week in the ICU, so I'm very aware of the fact that anything can happen at any time. Those are the types of things that should be covered by universal health care, not necessarily strep throat tests and yearly blood work; that stuff can go under primary care and should low-cost anyway once the insurance companies aren't involved. But no, I do not believe that a family should have to go into bankruptcy because someone got seriously ill and the hospital bill was a few hundred thousand dollars.
Single payer doesn't work. Canada's and the UK's healthcare s*cks. Extremely long wait times in the ERs and most of the healthcare is dispensed in clinics.
I can weigh in on Canada's health care. I've lived as an adult in both the U.S. and Canada. Anecdotally, the Canadian system is definitely not perfect. Its shortcomings are most apparent when it comes to getting an appointment for a specialist and/or trying to get an unusual condition diagnosed. It's very easy to slip through the cracks and wait for months for appointments.
And yes, the E.R. wait times can be quite long. I once observed an EMT queuing up to speak to the triage nurse while their patient was lying on a stretcher and bleeding (?!?!). Yes, I was surprised; in the E.R.s I've been in stateside, patients unloaded from an ambulance are whisked away immediately. Of course, I assumed that this patient's wounds were superficial and not life-threatening; otherwise, they probably would've been raced down a corridor as well.
However, the Canadian system really shines when you have acute, serious illnesses (i.e. cancer). Things move quickly and the care is excellent. And that's when you need it most. To have to think about a huge bill or inadequate insurance coverage when you've just had a heart attack or life-saving surgery is unfathomable for Canadians.
Single payer doesn't work. Canada's and the UK's healthcare s*cks. Extremely long wait times in the ERs and most of the healthcare is dispensed in clinics. The quality of medical care in the US is much higher.
GoFundMe is perfect for these medical bill funding requests. The general public should not be forced to pay the medical bills for those who live in an unhealthy manner (overeating, cigarette smoking, alcoholism)... but if YOU feel sorry for them, then YOU donate to their GoFundMe page. I also don't want my insurance premiums covering some mentally ill person's desire for a sex change operation. And there is a lot of really expensive experimental treatments that I don't believe should be covered by insurance. So for all of that, turn to GoFundMe pages and other methods of fundraising.
They go by gov't regulations - so when you're 70 and need cardiac surgery - the gov't will decide if ot's cost effective.
As someone stated above - no insurance changes are going to be made before the gov't deals with the expensive costs of pharmas and hospitals.
The free market does work and here's an example. When MRIs were introduced and became the go to for a diagnosis - they cost $1000. We had to get a referral from insurance companies documenting that both medication and PT had been tried and many times there was a dr to dr consult before the test would be approved. Two years later - one of the facilities decided to drop the cost to $500 as any medical testing costing $500 or less didn't need approval from the insurance companies. Needless to say they were inundated with patients needing MRIs while the MRI machines at other facilities sat unused until they too lowered their prices. At that time it still cost $1000 if you had a compensation case, No Fault case - or were private pay - but if you had insurance - the cost dropped to $500.
Drugs are cheaper in other countries because they set a price they are willing to pay. We don't so Americans absorb the cost for developing the drugs and any loss incurred by making deals for lower prices so the drugs will be used outside of the US.
Until the gov't plays hardball with the pharamceuticals and hospitals - no insurance change will make things better for the American taxpayer.
The link is from an organization called the Manhattan Institute. A right wing anti socialized healthcare group. What do expect them to say? They are biased...besides being irrelevant.
You comment about being 70 is a lie. An absolute lie. DOCTORS decided on your care NOT the government.
That is how it use to work, before government told you they could save you. Only to leave you hanging.
Your statement makes no sense....at all. The government regulates all businesses. Why is healthcare the one and only industry that conservatives think doesn't need any sort of regulation? What's so special about the healthcare industry that sets it apart from all others? Why has government regulation caused healthcare prices to escalate beyond the reach of 99.9% of the population? No other industry suffers from that, only healthcare according to conservatives.
This is why I call BS on that whole argument. It's a straw man they use because they have no real answer, just like that lie they told about selling insurance across state lines. For a while that was their go-to solution until it was made abundantly clear that it would do absolutely nothing to reduce prices.
The Republican politicians here in Texas convinced a whole lot of ignorant people that TORT reform would be a miracle in terms of bringing down healthcare costs. They passed that back in the early 2000s and you know how much medical prices were lowered? Yeah, that's right...NONE! Our prices here skyrocketed just like everyone else's.
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