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That's a problem with health care, not private insurance. The only difference is that with public funds your health care is being paid for by others, most likely those who are younger than you. There is no magic in public funding that causes care to be less expensive as you age; it's just less expensive for you personally.
I've read that the total health care expense of a person's life, something like 90%, is in the final few years before a person dies which makes perfect sense.
That would put great emphasis on the age of a country's population and right now the baby boomers, a very large generation, are reaching old age.
45.000 Americans dies each year due to not being insured and getting the help they need because of costs.
500.000 Americans files for medical bankruptcies each year.
Whats the UK numbers?
Last edited by Northman83; 04-03-2019 at 10:18 AM..
I had a dear friend DENIED cancer treatment because of her age in one of those countries with national healthcare.
Sure you did.
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Originally Posted by Quick Enough
I CONTROL my insurances and health care, NOT some gov't bureaucrat!
Unless you are self-insuring, as in, paying for everything all by yourself without the benefit of health insurance, your healthcare is subsidized by the government. You might think you, and you alone, are in control, but you are not. Try paying for health insurance without the government subsidy. You wouldn't be able to afford it.
So no, you are no better than those of us getting subsidies through the ACA. We just get our government aid through different channels.
That's how benefits are calculated. You can continue to work longer than 35 years, but if your income isn't significantly higher than $40,000 your monthly benefit will not be increased.
There's also a difference between working 35 years to get the maximum benefit and then having to work additional years to provide income before you retire.
Why didn't YOU pay for her? Are you too CHEAP? Oh wait, you want the rest of US to pay for her and NOT YOU!
Actually she never told anyone she needed help that way, and given that I had 6 kids living at home it would have been a challenge for me to do so. But hey you be the sort of person you want to be. In this case its trying to blame someone for their mothers death rather then discuss the topic at hand.
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" In any developed country she would have lived."
Not necessarily. There ARE long waiting times in other countries.
LOL. 2 months seems to be the latest outcry. That would have still placed my mother in the single cancer sort, with a high % of survival, not 6 months later looking at a xray of her brain seeing it start to eat her brain as it had metastatized.
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I had a dear friend DENIED cancer treatment because of her age in one of those countries with national healthcare.
Cool, in the US we deny you all sorts of things like organ donation for example if you are too old, or too poor.
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"Our insurance system is inefficient, expensive"
Mine is NOT. It only went UP after OCare went into affect. And by the way this year it went DOWN because of some of the things OCare MANDATED were eliminated. My wife just went through cancer treatments and our cost were minimal.
Your healthcare includes a massive number of people in between. Handling dozens of insurances and thousands of pages of rules, all different. Sorry but no, your health insurance is insanely overburdened.
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" We pay twice what other countries do", NOT when you add up ALL the taxes they pay.
Bwahaha. yes including everything they pay that is spent on healthcare. Your response is wrong, and stunningly ignorant of reality.
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I CONTROL my insurances and health care, NOT some gov't bureaucrat!
No, you merely control if you pay for it. I sincerely doubt you are negotiating standards of care with them.
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Rather the FORCING US to take some uncontrollable gov't system, the VA, Medicare and Medicaid are doing SO well, MOST PREFER NOT to get the fed involved.
LOL. Yeah most folks are refusing their VA, medicare, and medicaid. Uh huh.
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If YOU like it, and want it so m much, move to a country that has it and leave the rest of us ALONE!
Wah wah wah. If you dont like being forced to pay for mediacare, and medicaid why don't you leave? The majority of us are for this-you're the minority here screaming for us to get out? Uh huh.
Which can be shortened to: "all welfare states must answer to math at some point."
It's those damn inviolable Laws of Economics.
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Originally Posted by vtvette
I've read that the total health care expense of a person's life, something like 90%, is in the final few years before a person dies which makes perfect sense.
That's false. It's based on a distorted deceptive view of the data.
30% of Medicare spending is spent in the last year of life.
The way that works out in terms of numbers, is $40,000 to $50,000 per person per year, compared with $7,000 per person who isn't in the last year of life.
Here's where the distortion comes into play. 48.7% of those people can be characterized has high persistent spending.
What that means is the day those people became eligible for Medicare, they were spending $40,000 to $50,000 per year, and even before they became eligible for Medicare, Medicaid or private insurance was spending $40,000 to $50,000 per year on them.
Those people do not have a specific disease or illness, rather they have chronic medical issues which are almost exclusively Life-Style-based.
They're over-weight, out-of-shape, bad diet, poor diet, substance abusers with Type II Diabetes, Hypertension, COPD and other cardiovascular conditions.
Their medical expenses could be cut in half if they would just change their damn frickin' Life-Style.
The median spending in the study was $59,394. That's median, meaning the mid-point of all spending, not the average spending.
29% had moderate persistent spending. They typically have liver or kidney diseases or various cancers.
10.2% had progressive spending and their median was $39,037. Initially, Medicare did not spend a lot of money on them, but over time, their spending increased. That's usually indicative of end-of-life diseases like prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, dementia and cardio-pulmonary diseases.
12.1% had late rise spending. Medicare spent practically nothing on those people, until the last four months of their life and their cost is $11,166.
Two things about the high persistent spenders is their visits to specialists are more than twice the other groups, averaging 6.3 visits to 3 visits, and a lot of the money is spent on prolonging life, rather than treating disease or illness, and those are two very different things.
It raises ethical questions, because those people are basically dead, you're just prolonging their life, and for every $1 you spend prolonging their life is a $1 you cannot spend treating another patient.
Contrary to popular belief, healthcare is subject to the Laws of Economics.
There are only so many doctors, and so many medical facilities, and so much medical equipment and supplies, and so much money you can spend, and no more than that, no matter what you do, and any attempt to circumvent the Laws of Economics only creates problems.
While an advocate for Universal Healthcare , I have never been keen on a Single Payer model in the US.
Having said this, I can appreciate how uninsured US people,without the ability to pay out of pocket, would likely be thrilled to be on a 60 day wait list for Cancer Treatment. Then again, they probably would be unaware they had Cancer because they don’t recieve screenings.
That's a problem with health care, not private insurance. The only difference is that with public funds your health care is being paid for by others, most likely those who are younger than you. There is no magic in public funding that causes care to be less expensive as you age; it's just less expensive for you personally.
Having said this, I can appreciate how uninsured US people,without the ability to pay out of pocket, would likely be thrilled to be on a 60 day wait list for Cancer Treatment. Then again, they probably would be unaware they had Cancer because they don’t receive screenings.
Exactly as there are people that simply can't afford basic health insurance in the USA and therefore some kind of universal health coverage system needs to be in place like in other Western countries.
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