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It’s mainly due to price of drugs, many unnecessary procedures (like cancer screenings or certain surgeries) and obesity.
I always wondered why Canadians are less obese. They have the same crappy food and car centric lifestyle. If anyone has a good hypothesis please share. I think the over prescription of SSRIs (which cause weight gain) maybe a factor in the USA.
I'm an American in Canada, and I think it's just that they tend to go outside more and do things. And I don't mean extreme sports or whatever, just everyday walks or doing stuff outdoors all year round. Like most colder countries, they dress for the weather so that they can be outside for a while. (I like the Norwegian saying, "There is no bad weather, there is only bad clothing.) Shoveling snow is good exercise if you don't have a heart condition.
But, while I don't know a whole lot of Canadians on a personal basis, two of them I do know are on SSRIs for anxiety, so they take them here, too.
The VA is gov't run and owned. Very different than Medicare where the HC delivery is primarily in the private sector. Find me a patient not wanting their Medicare, and I'll show you an odd man out! No offense intended.
And 70% of Medicare is funded by taxes. The average Medicare per patient is $18k/year. Are you prepared to give the government $25k/year for your health insurance? I'm not.
If Medicare was an insurance company, it would no longer exist because it would have gone bankrupt.
And 70% of Medicare is funded by taxes. The average Medicare per patient is $18k/year. Are you prepared to give the government $18k/year for your health insurance? I'm not.
If Medicare was an insurance fund, it would be bankrupt already.
Since it is linked to the general fund, Medicare funding has no limit. And so does not need our tax money. Federal programs are unlike private sector businesses for much the same reason.
I don't know your numbers. My wife recently left Obamacare for Medicare and her HC costs went way down from $20K/yr to a few thousand. I don't know the current exact number.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Quick Enough
"Canada spends 56% less per-capita on government/compulsory health care than USA."
Which is why so many Canadians, the English, etc., PAY for EXTRA health care insurance and come to AMERICA for health care treatment!
I think more Americans travel to Mexico for cheaper dental and medical procedures than Canadians or Britons travel to the US.
The fact that you have a universal health system to rely on is often comforting, especially if your status or employment changes.
Whilst no one in many countries is preventing anyone from taking out private healthcare or in respect of the very wealthy can jet off to world renowned hospitals and treatment centres across the globe.
It's also worth noting that many Universal Healthcare systems have varying levels of private sector involvement.
In terms of the US it tends to negotiate prices for pharma and equipment at a hospital group level rather than using evaluation bodies, who look at medicines and equipment in relation to effectiveness and cost, and have the ability, along with other legislation to force big pharmas hand in relation to price.
The US is a vast pharma market but it's a capitalist wild west system, rather than being more regulated, and the US tough stance in terms of deals does not seem to apply to pharma.
As for pharma it uses ever greening in relation to patents, is known to price fix and is known to buy rights to certain pharma drugs only to increase the price by a thousand times or more.
This is a problem in all health systems however the fragmentation of the US healthcare sector, means it is ripe for such exploitation, and US medical sales are also often manipulative with companies trying to get their product prescribed, and this was even the case in relation to Opioids (Purdue Pharma etc), and sadly this has led to further well documented problems,
Last edited by Brave New World; 11-06-2022 at 08:25 AM..
Since it is linked to the general fund, Medicare funding has no limit. And so does not need our tax money. Federal programs are unlike private sector businesses for much the same reason.
I don't know your numbers. My wife recently left Obamacare for Medicare and her HC costs went way down from $20K/yr to a few thousand. I don't know the current exact number.
And there's no such thing as a free lunch. You can't deficit spend into infinity. Medicare funding is NOT UNLIMITED. PERIOD. END OF STORY. I don't know where people get the idea that we can print money into infinity. We can't. The second the fiat dollar loses its reserve currency status, it's toilet paper.
Government produces nothing and adds no value. All it does it shift the cost burden from one party to another. You pay for every penny the government spends/wastes in some way, shape or form.
US Dermatology has evolved into a business of its own the last few decades. So much they do is cosmetic, and not urgent or necessary medical care. Even much of the gray zone cancer screenings and procedures, i.e. medically billable stuff, is closer to cosmetic. So new derm offices crop up everywhere, able to profit on the optional free market stuff. The real medical care they do helps pay the bills, but is not their prime focus.
I call and get an appointment within a few days or the week. I just went again this past week.
Right on. My son strongly considered derm for his residency/career path.
1. Normal business hours
2. No or very, very few on call hours
3. Low malpractice insurance, less chance to be sued
4. Lots of billing is outside insurance.
5. Lots of low stress cases/not many super tough cases
6. Per 4 in particular high income.
7. Short residency duration (3 yrs.) vs. other high income/ very competitive areas......ortho 5, general surgery 5, neurosurgery 7 and often tack on 1, 2 or 3 year fellowships on top of that.
Given all that derm. has become one of the most competitive residencies to win. IIRC per glancing at some numbers this year's derm winners had an average 251 USMLE Step 1 which I believe was/is the highest of any residency type.
And there's no such thing as a free lunch. You can't deficit spend into infinity. Medicare funding is NOT UNLIMITED. PERIOD. END OF STORY. I don't know where people get the idea that we can print money into infinity. We can't. The second the fiat dollar loses its reserve currency status, it's toilet paper.
Government produces nothing and adds no value. All it does it shift the cost burden from one party to another. You pay for every penny the government spends/wastes in some way, shape or form.
About anything we do at the federal level linked to the general fund, can theoretically go on with no set endpoint of USD used. Limits can certainly be legislated. But the limits are not USD numbers based.
For instance.
If we should have a new World War and need $100T within 1 year to prosecute it or else die, what happens?
Answer: We create the money, and our country does its level best to use that money and produce whatever amount of war materiel we need. i.e. just like WW2, we are resource/productivity constrained, not USD limited.
Through money creation the federal gov't can itself, or incite the private sector to produce S-loads of war materiel, for instance. Having great value, including saving our souls. And similarly support our senior HC.
We the people/taxpayers will never pay for it all. We will surely have some inflation. But in 100 years, our national debt will a much larger number. We the people/taxpayers have as a burden our federal taxes, fees and fines. Not the national debt.
Right on. My son strongly considered derm for his residency/career path.
1. Normal business hours
2. No or very, very few on call hours
3. Low malpractice insurance, less chance to be sued
4. Lots of billing is outside insurance.
5. Lots of low stress cases/not many super tough cases
6. Per 4 in particular high income.
7. Short residency duration (3 yrs.) vs. other high income/ very competitive areas......ortho 5, general surgery 5, neurosurgery 7 and often tack on 1, 2 or 3 year fellowships on top of that.
Given all that derm. has become one of the most competitive residencies to win. IIRC per glancing at some numbers this year's derm winners had an average 251 USMLE Step 1 which I believe was/is the highest of any residency type.
My daughter was specifically proctored by some of our local docs even before med school. Including derm. Despite my warnings, she followed in my foot steps. Loving to use her brain in caring for those in actual need, vs the easy dollars of derm. Same year, one of our other local docs to be went derm. And fits his expectations.
"Canada spends 56% less per-capita on government/compulsory health care than USA."
Which is why so many Canadians, the English, etc., PAY for EXTRA health care insurance and come to AMERICA for health care treatment!
This just isn't true. Most Canadians do not come to the USA. They just don't.
Medical tourism is up globally as people will opt to 'travel to places where non-emergency medical procedures are cheaper but NO -- everyday Canadians are not opting to travel to USA for medical procedures.
I do not believe the various provincial health care programs in Canada would work universally in the USA. (Canada does not have one health care system -- that's a myth).
But I'm always fascinated in the lack of faith in the USA to be able to come up with a system that takes the best from other systems and fixes the worst of their system.
It's all political. We shoujld have the brain pwoer to work on this but it always becomes us vs. them...andmore time is trying to trash other countries rather than trying to find a system that will provide more health care to Americans.
It's a silly game and we all play it.
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