Medical Care Gets Outsourced Too 1184
Muppy writes "Here's the summary from the most emailed article in The Washington Post today -- about an American who went to India for heart surgery, which he could never have afforded here. U.S.: $200,000 total cost ($50,000 deposit required) for heart operation. India: $10,000 total bill, including hospital, air fare, and a side trip to the Taj Mahal. And the Indian doctors are probably at least as good as those one is likely to get in the U.S. From the article: 'Eager to cash in on the trend, posh private hospitals are beginning to offer services tailored for foreign patients, such as airport pickups, Internet-equipped private rooms and package deals that combine, for example, tummy-tuck surgery with several nights in a maharajah's palace...'"
without lawyers putting doctors out of business (Score:0, Insightful)
Unless we spend more on education... (Score:5, Insightful)
UK Total Cost... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even so, I must say I prefer universal healthcare.
Caveat Emptor! (Score:2, Insightful)
Caveat Emptor!
Re:without lawyers putting doctors out of business (Score:3, Insightful)
American prices out of line... (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember, perscription medications are very much an IP-based business. The first pill costs millions in research and approvals. Once the pill is ready for mass production, the actual ingredients cost very little to gather and put together. That's the reason why there has to be patents on medications... without that IP-based protection, nobody would pay to do the research that creates new drugs.
Still, when Canada's getting the medications for less than they're being sold in the USA... something's very wrong. It feels like every other first world country has set price controls that the drug makers are bowing to, and because we don't have price limits, they charge us to make the money.
It's an interesting dilema... if we pull out of funding the world's research, that research just isn't going to get done. On the other hand, we're funding the research that the rest of the world is benefiting from and not paying for.
I dont understand (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:without lawyers putting doctors out of business (Score:2, Insightful)
Without opportunistic suppliers of over-expensive medical equipment medical costs could go down too.
Re:Unless we spend more on education... (Score:5, Insightful)
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supply/demand crisis (Score:4, Insightful)
Could someone explain the costs? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd definitely go to India rather than face that kind of horrorific bill. It makes me think medical costs are truly out of control, and frankly, I don't want to pay them.
D
Don't get too excited, people (Score:2, Insightful)
But this isn't too far from reality. There was a group of cardiologists who decided to totally refuse any kind of third-party payment. No Medicare/Medicaid, HMOs, or even health insurance. If you wanted service, you paid for it, in cash, at the time of service. Their patient volume, as might be expected, fell by about three-quarters. Their income doubled.
Why? Because the government only pays about 30 cents on the dollar. This means that HMOs and health insurance companies pay a few cents less than that. So if the hospital bills for $200k, they're unlikely to get more than, say, $70k, which is only a little more than the total cost in India. If the hospital knows a procedure is going to cost $10, they'll bill for $30, because that's the only way they can cover their costs.
Governmental intervention in healthcare has shafted the very people it was designed to help: the poor. If you don't have health insurance and aren't eligible for Medicare/Medicaid, you're screwed, because while the government and major health insurance corporations can force providers to take a bath on two thirds of their costs ("Oh," says Uncle Sam, "Don't like what we're paying? Turn down a single patient and you can't treat Medicare/Medicaid patients for years!"), you can't.
Want to cut down on the spiraling cost of healthcare? Start paying what it costs rather than having bean counters in Minnisota who have never been to medical school and never treated a patient in their life determine, without any first-hand experience, what your surgery is supposed to cost.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:supply/demand crisis (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:UK Total Cost... (Score:3, Insightful)
As for the rates of tax, for me, when I look at my tax bill, I can at least look at where it's being spent and think - yeah, that's worth it.
I'm not trying to make a compelling argument here, just a bit of personal opinion
But... I thought *Canada* had the sucky healthcare (Score:5, Insightful)
Pah.
Canada may not have perfect healthcare, but we sure as hell aren't (a) paying for heart surgery; and (b) taking off to India to get it.
India is far (Score:3, Insightful)
Several million spent this year in my city... (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't seen a school yet that hires an economics teacher, and has them fill in as a coach, but they all seem to be fine with hiring a coach and asking them to fill in as an economics teacher.
Re:Unless we spend more on education... (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't "spend money" on tax cuts. That implies the money belongs to the government in the first place.
By the way, we still tax Social Security benefits. Read that again. We TAX SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS. We tax people who get married. We tax people who sell their house. We tax people who make just enough to eat. We tax everything at enormous, ridiculous rates.
Re:Canada too, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about you or your friend, but I wouldn't want the words "laser," "surgery," and "real cheap" together anywhere near *my* eyes.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
the malpractice myth (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Medical Costs... (Score:4, Insightful)
Costs are high because of several factors, first is the medical billing system. In our country we have countless carriers and each has a different form and another person you have to higher in order to understand what they will and what they won't pay for. This can add up to about 40% of a hospital's operating budget. A single payer health care system could take care of this, or a more standardized set of forms and practices.
Second is malpractice insurance. We are a lititgious society (in the United States) and punitive damages can get out of hand much of the time. For the most part, doctors are not being willfully malicious when there is an accident, or mistake. It is a high pressure job and they are there trying to help people. WHile they should be held accountable for their actions, this accountability should not become a barrier for treatment. Rather than capping punitive damages, Good Samaritan laws could be strengthened and applied to doctors and other emergency service workers, but that's just my opinion.
A single payer system isn't going to fix the problem, it's going to take a lot more than that, and we're not even talking about health care access.
Re:How about a child's education, too? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Canada too, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sounds good to me.... (Score:5, Insightful)
As a US resident, I'll add "The more fundamental issue is that while Americans are increasingly eager to capitalise on the benefits of a nationalised health system, they are adamant in their insistence that such such systems are akin to something between a violation of human rights and communism, and implementing one will lead to disaster."
Not in my opinion. (Score:5, Insightful)
When I got a fungal ear infection and my doctor prescribed me antibiotics, which are exactly WHY I got the fungal infection, I stared thinking about it. I haven't taken a prescription since.
When I had to get my wisdom teeth out, I decided to do it at the dentist's office instead of the oral surgeon, I saved over $1200, and the fact that I was awake and could cooperate with the dentist meant that the surgery went smoother and safer, and I recovered much faster because they can really 'beat you up' when you're unconscious. I walked home with some cotton to soak up the blood and a bottle of advil for the rest of the week.
Why on earth would insurance pay for a full-on surgery to extract wisdom teeth? It can be done easily at the dentist's office for a third of the cost.
I really don't think the problem is litigation, it's certainly a problem, but not the major factor in medical costs. The major factor is American aversion to reasonable amounts of blood and pain, coupled with excessive trust in the medical institution and it's practitioners.
Listen, asshole (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:our story (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:our story (Score:3, Insightful)
Forgive my callous analysis, but 'needing' IVF is a subjective take on it. You wouldn't die or be sore or suffer in any objective terms if you were unable to conceive. While I feel for you, I think that any insurance company that did cover it would be driving up costs and doing a disservice to people who just wanted to stay well and not pay through the nose if they were injured or ill.
Adoption, while also expensive, is also a viable option. If you REALLY want your own biological baby so bad, pay for it yourself. don't burden the others on your insurance policy with paying for something that is unnecessary. And it seems you did, which is great.
The idea that the Netherlands mandates insurance for it is ridiculous. Sometimes life deals you a bad card. That's just the way it is.
Re:our story (why do you deserve a child?) (Score:3, Insightful)
That hurts man. Seeing that someone believes that crap about 'devine reason'. If it was available, would you have gotten the flu vaccine or is it meant to be that more people will die this year because of the flu vaccine shortage? If a condom can stop VD's and prevent unwanted pregnancies, are you really claiming that we shouldn't use them? Do you take responsibility for your actions? Do you think for yourself? Columbine or 911, was there a devine reason?
My wife has Endometriosis and there is no reason for this. IVF provided us with the ability to raise our biological offspring. Why is this important? Because our brain makes us think it is. Yes it is hardcoded in our brain to produce offspring, and though we have the capability to ignore our basic instincts it takes an effort. Going with the natural flow of things is, well, natural.
So do your sister a favor. Let her listend to her body while you listend in private to your god.
Have a happy life.
Re:Canada too, eh? (Score:2, Insightful)
Reasons: Doctors make less in Canada. Laser eye surgery clinics are owned by the doctors, reducing cost to patients. US dollar is favorable here (well maybe not this week lol). Laser eye surgery clinics are private, so they don't have to charge more to foreigners like public institutions do.
Forgive the parent's poor choice of words; the meat of his message is of value.
Re:Unless we spend more on education... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you consider a "health care system" as consisting of nothing more than the availability of the latest technology and world-class specialists, yes, I'd agree we all want that.
Where I live, I have easy access to auto dealerships which are more than happy to sell and service some the finest motor cars in the world. The problem is that being able to choose between a Maserati and a Porsche, in a real world sense, means as little to me as it does to the other 95% of the other folks in the U.S.
The fact that the health and lives of ordinary people depend on such an economic model strikes me as somewhere between irresponsible and shameful.
Re:Unless we spend more on education... (Score:4, Insightful)
While I do oppose Bush's tax cuts which have led to massive deficits, I think this is a very strange characterization. That seems to imply that our money belongs to the government from the start.-
Re:Spending isn't the problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, teachers are never given the benefit of the doubt. If a kid decided to punch a teacher, they'd get suspended for a few days. If a teacher hit back in defense, they'd get fired. Teachers were frequently told to stop sending troublemakers to the office -- in effect, keep them in your classroom, we don't want to deal with 'em. You end up spending more time disciplining students than teaching them -- a phenomenal waste of time and money.
Re:Spending isn't the problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. That isn't competition. That is an elective program that sends money outside the public schools. If the law required that for a school to accept vouchers, they couldn't turn away any students (even those that are "special needs" students) and they were held to the same standardized test schedule and requirements, then it would be a little more equitable. The system, as I've seen it proposed, is little more than welfare for the rich, where those that would have sent their children to private school anyway manage to save money on the tuition. That doesn't help public schools, not the country as a whole.
It's not the insurance companies (Score:4, Insightful)
It's plaintiffs lawyers (like John Edwards) suing doctors with junk science, judges not doing their jobs, and gullible juries. And of course the "defensive medicine" (runing every test just to CYA) that doctors practice to avoid suits.
And of course, legitimate malpractice claims.
Insurance companies just run the numbers and tack on a profit - they really are the least responsible.
If they doctors in India can do as good a job as the ones in the USA at a lower cost, I'll be traveling overseas if I have to have another surgery.
A BIG "if." What evidence do we have of this? Medical school admission in the US is extremely competitive, likely the most competitive academic process in the US. I'd like to see some evidence that "Indian doctors are probably at least as good as those one is likely to get in the U.S." There are competitive schools in India, but to make a blanket statement about Indian doctors is ludicrous. After all, don't a lot of brilliant Indians come to the U.S. to attend grad school?
Of course, if something goes wrong, don't look for a lawyer to sue - they are all in the U.S.!
Re:Spending isn't the problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
I make more now, in a mid-low level tech job than the most that a teacher can make in any public school k-12 I've ever heard of. So, if I were to want to share my experience with students and teach them in any of the subjects I'm qualified in, I'd have to take a pay cut (not to mention that I have as many math classes as needed for a math degree, but because I persued a degree that doesn't match with a course title, I can't teach anyone in any courses under All-Children-Left-Behind - ACLB).
I think that the teaching scales aren't quite right, but as I see them, they are not adequately compensated. You will not see the best people in the subjects go into teaching others when they can easily make more elsewhere. You are left with the incompetent (of which I saw a lot) and those that want to teach (shrinking in number because of the crap, like ACLB, that they have to put up with).
Re:How about a child's education, too? (Score:2, Insightful)
Sounds like we need to open source the education system. Let's put these great teachers on the net so we all can benefit. I know some places are doing it. MIT?
Re:But what about Canada? Australia? Europe? (Score:3, Insightful)
Canadians want 2-tier health: poll [canada.com]
British Columbia is looking to expand its use of private medical clinics [canoe.ca]
Private medical clinic opens in Montreal [www.ctv.ca]
Pettigrew open to discussing role of private MRI clinics [canoe.ca]
Even the Canadian medical pot users complain that "He doesn't need government-grown schwag that costs $150 Canadian per 30 grams" [medicalmarihuana.ca]
I suppose you are going to aruge that Rush Limbaugh controls the Canadian media because they disagree with you? Do you own research, folks! Blindingly following Socialists is as danagerous than blindingly following the Republicans or Democrats.
CONFIDENTIAL (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Unless we spend more on education... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a news article today about how a healthy majority of Bush voters think that Bush is popular in the rest of the world, Islamic nations support Bush's international war on terrorism, and that Bush supports the Kyoto air pollution agreements and the landmine anti-proliferation agreement. He is, in fact, openly against the Kyoto and landmine anti-proliferation agreements. (I'm not trying to argue the pros or cons of that political stance.) There is a clear and unquestionaly disconnect between the President's political agenda and what his own supporters believe is his agenda. How can this happen?
Our media has completely failed us. How is it that our health system is in crisis? Because most Americans are not aware that it could or should be different. Many Americans do believe that we have the best health care system in the world (not just quality of care, should you be able to afford it.) Why don't they know? Because our media has completely failed us.
"The first stage of fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power"
-Benito Mussolini
(1883-1945), Fascist Dictator of Italy
Re:the malpractice myth (Score:4, Insightful)
There are a few bad doctors out there, and bad outcomes happen at times to all doctors. We could do better at policing ourselves.
However, the lawsuit-jackpot mentality is not helping the patients or the physicians. It helps the lawyer who gets to take his 30-50% off the top of a big judgement. As a rural family physician, I deliver 30-40 babies a year, but my malpractice premium is about $40,000/year. If I didn't deliver babies, it would be about $12,000. Disturbingly, 40K is actually pretty low for delivering babies. It helps that I live in a rural area.
I have to deliver about 30 babies a year just to cover my malpractice premium and office expenses. That's a lot of late nights, weekends away from home, etc. If I have a bad outcome, even if it wasn't my fault and the jury finds in my favor, my premium will still jump a good 25-50% or so. If you don't love delivering babies for the sake of delivering babies, you start asking yourself why you're exposing yourself to all this litigious risk, missing sleep, and paying higher premiums even if you're right. Then you start seeing physicians retiring or stopping high-risk procedures, and that doesn't serve anyone.
It's an easy sound bite to just blame doctors, or just blame lawyers. All the involved parties need to sit down and work out a solution. I'm afraid that this won't happen until enough pregnant women can't find a physician and end up being delivered in the emergency room.
Re:This is news to ANYBODY? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, you're not going to see the LAWYERS in charge around here fixing their profession anytime soon.
Re:American prices out of line... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:without lawyers putting doctors out of business (Score:3, Insightful)
It isn't that the cost is too high, it is that the number of procedures to amortize the cost over is too low. If you buy insurance for a car for $1000 a year, that's not too bad - about average. But if you only use that car once a year, then you are operating at a great loss. It would make much more sense to rent a car for that one day, buy the LDW for $30 and be done with it. The same goes for rural doctors. They will see so few specialty cases that it makes economic sense to not be able to treat them. The insurance cost wouldn't be high if they saw one a day. But at one a month, the cost per patient is so high that the caps put on by insurance carriers would have all the patients traveling to other places, rather than pay the surcharge he'd be forced to pay.
So yes, insurance is killing the small-town doctor. Just as All-Children-Left-Behind is killing the rural schools. The laws are written by big-city people with big-city visions. The small towns are getting the shaft. On top of that, Bush was pressing to get rid of the Universal Service Fund, which would lead to big spikes in telephone cost for rural areas as well (not picking on him, both parties are about equal in their press for the city vote at the cost of the rural areas, but that is just another recent example).
Re:Unless we spend more on education... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not exactly a lie: if you're super-rich, the USA probably does have the best healthcare in the world for most procedures. Now, if you're not rich, then you're not important. And if you don't even have insurance, then you aren't even human and don't count. This is the President's point of view, BTW, not mine.
Re:American prices out of line... (Score:3, Insightful)
If the major insurers in the US for example would get together they could do the same thing (I guess: They do this already, but you don't get any of it) and everybody (well, minus the pharma companies) would profit.
Have a look at Pfizers financial statement [pfizer.com], they're still doing rather well.
I also find it notable that I got my Flueshot here in Toronto yesterday without a problem while in the US people are standing in line for hours on end and then still have to go home (or come up to Canada). And there I thought people only stood in line in "commie land".
If something goes wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Blame over-regulation (Score:2, Insightful)
People in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia pay about 1/2 of what we do for medical care, and live as long or longer.
A better way to characterize the Medical Industry today is to say that it is were the American Automobile industry was in 1970. Those dental trips to Mexico ? Think of them as the VW Beatle. The heart trips to India ? Those are the Toyota Corolla, baby -- and a lot of rich Republican doctors and hospital board members and insurance executives will never see it this good again.
Re:Unless we spend more on education... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is news to ANYBODY? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's not the insurance companies (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you saying that John Edwards has sued doctors with junk science, or just that some plantiffs' lawyers have?
Re:supply/demand crisis (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, I read you, and I disagree. Weeding out people to keep the numbers low will *not* improve medical care. It removes people that would be competent doctors that are not rich. It removes competent doctors that don't work well in extremely long shifts. I'd rather have more doctors, have a few that are less competent, and have a better system for removing incompetent doctors. It would lower costs and improve my safety at the same time. But the doctors are essentially self-regualting, so they won't allow it. The incompetent ones may lose their jobs.
Re:without lawyers putting doctors out of business (Score:4, Insightful)
He mentioned that the 2% number is bogus, and went on to explain why. He commented that the numerator in that division was comprised of all doctors' malpractice costs, and that the denominator was all costs of all health care institutions, including doctors' offices, nursing homes, hospitals, etc. His conclusion was that if you corrected either the numerator or denominator of that equation so that they both measured costs for the same group of individuals/institutions, the picture wouldn't look appear quite so insignificant.
This wouldn't surprise me in the least, given the inaccuracies and misleading-at-best statistics that seem to run rampant in what we hear from politicians and the media. I sometimes wish there was a group of non-partisan accountants and statisticians who could analyse all this stuff for us and point out the glaring omissions we don't often see until reading the full text of such reports ourselves.
Re:Unless we spend more on education... (Score:3, Insightful)
The USA population represents only 5% of the world-wide population, yet we have 50% or so of the worlds wealth. I think it is VERY sad that 50% of the worlds wealth cannot provide good health care for 5% of the worlds population. Why is that? Because the top 1% of the USA control the majority of that wealth. The top 1% has a combined income/worth of the lower 95% of the USA population. It is really sad when you think about it, though that requires getting through all the Republican FUD (and no I am not a democrat).
Why is outsourcing bad... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:the malpractice myth (Score:2, Insightful)
We had roughly the same percentage of disastrous outcomes, but nobody to blame for them.
Re:Unless we spend more on education... (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that drug companies charge many times the price in the US for the same drugs they sell in Europe, doesn't make our health system cost more.
Neither does the fact that US insurance companies charge more and make more profit here than in Europe.
Neither does the fact that the FDA insulates American companies from competition by embargoing cheaper drugs and equipment for years after they are proven and used in Europe.
Nope, everybody knows it's lawyers, liberals and welfare mothers who make our system cost so much. But it's still the best in the world, as anybody who can afford really great insurance will tell you.
Malpractice Tort Reform (Score:4, Insightful)
The bulk of costs are not in settlements but actually in legal fees (discovery, court costs, etc). Therefore I propose the following changes:
1) Doctor's insurance covers patients up to a certain dollar ammount due to medical error. Dollar ammount is set by a government regulatory agency.
2) Patients also can purchase additional insurance for medical errors covering them up to a larger dollar ammount. This will be included, presumably, in the medical insurance.
3) Malpractice should be limited to those cases where one can demonstrate that the doctor should not be practicing medicine. However, medical error should automatically provide the patient with an insurance settlement.
Now--- I don't think that that I trust any candidate to do this so....
Re:This is news to ANYBODY? (Score:5, Insightful)
The percentage of people who have the personal resources to personally pay for the worst case health problems is in the low single digits. That means that health care gets rationed here in the USA, too. It's just a different system; people who have full-time jobs at large corporations usually get first priority. (Why does the size of your employer have anything to do with health care? Who knows.) Then come the perfectly healthy people who are allowed to buy individual policies, and people who work at small employers where none of their coworkers are too sick to lose the group plan. Lowest in the rationing pecking order are uninsured who rely on emergency room triage.
Oh, I forgot that half of the healthcare in this country is fully socialized. It's just for everyone who is old enough to get on medicare so that they can get free coveraged paid for by those of us who actually have to work (but don't get to actually benefit from the socialized healthcare we pay for ourselves).
At the end of the day, almost nobody is actually directly paying for their healthcare in the US anyway.
Re:Unless we spend more on education... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Canadian hospitals ROUTINELY close to all but emergency cases for the last couple of months of the year, when they run out of money. "
As a Canadian, having grown up with both parents active in the health care industry, i have to ask. Care to quote your source?
Re:This is news to ANYBODY? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Frivolous lawsuits" are less than 2% of the total, and hardly register in terms of actual dollars. No, the skyrocketing cost of medicine in the US can be firmly laid at the feet of PharmaCorps and the out-of-control insurance companies. Lawsuits actually went down in the past couple of years, yet malpractice insurance fees continued to rise.
In fact, ridding frivolous lawsuits and capping patient recoveries would not put a dent in medical costs. [factcheck.org] All that would do is take power out of the hands of judges who should be the final arbiters of what is and isn't a frivolous case and destroy the ability of plaintiffs to adequately address what, due to its nature, is a rather grievous harm.
You want to bring down the costs of medicine? Reign in the skyrocketing costs of drugs and insurance that doesn't adequately cover the insureds.
Communism/Socialism vs Capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
But if the people who dictate what can and can't be done also get to own the whole thing and rake off enough to get rich, we call it an Insurance Industry -- GOOD!!
Re:This is news to ANYBODY? (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder if that's at least partially because Cuba has been denied access to American hamburgers, potato chips, donuts and soda pop (not to mention 1/10 mile car trips)?
Re:This is news to ANYBODY? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to mention a lower rate of vehicular death - no cars going over 40 MPH...
And less murder - no money to buy drugs, no gangbangers.
Re:Unless we spend more on education... (Score:3, Insightful)
Landmine anti-proliferation restricts our military's options. We have remote controlled mines that we can turn on and off at will, bombs that can set up a minefield from 50,000 feet, mines that will deactivate after a relatively short period of time.
As for Bush's popularity with the rest of the world, I dont' really care. I care about what he will do with/for the USA.
On the other hand, our litigus system needs to be reformed. Rising healthcare costs are more than just litigation however. People are living longer, more conditions are being treated, the average age of the population increasing.
I don't agree with Bush on many topics. However, I don't believe that Kerry and Edwards will take us in the right direction. I'm voting for Badnirak this time, even though I think that he's a bit of a loon.
Re:Unless we spend more on education... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is news to ANYBODY? (Score:4, Insightful)
50 years ago, there wasn't much that could be done for you beyond a couple of thousand dollars. Most people could be expected to pay for their own healthcare.
Now it's not unheard of to spend more than 1 million dollars on a single patient (one of my former employers mentioned in a benefits meeting that they had 5 $1 million patients in the previous year). Any reasonable person needs to have insurance, unless they're willing to die for the principal of frugality.
Health savings accounts are fine, as long as everybody qualifies, and as long as they always come with full insurance past some deductible that most people can afford. I do think that all health insurance plans should be required to have a high deductible to encourage people to shop on price. However, I also think that one way or another, there should be a single risk pool that amortizes the risk evenly over the whole population. This would greatly reduce both the outrageous costs of accounting in the insurance industry and the stress most people needlessly experience when they change jobs.
As long as I receive the same care as the Pres! (Score:3, Insightful)
Knowing that is never going to happen I am completely against Universal Health Care. Do you actually think you and John Howard recieve equal care? Heck, politicans here won't even trust their kids to public schools let alone public health care!
Health Care--like food and land and every other resource--is a limited resource. Not everyone can eat lobster everyday and live in a mansion and afford to go to an Ivy league school. Not everyone can receive the top best healthcare. That is just reality.
What happens in "Universal Health Care" is that the powerful get their health care while what is left over is spread out thin between everyone else. At least in our system if I work hard enough and have a good job I can get good health care. To me that is much more fair than having my health care decided by whether or not I'm in politics or by "who I know".
Brian Ellenberger
Re:American health care costs (Score:4, Insightful)
Malpractice has had an indirect effect upon the cost of healthcare in the US: it has raised the standard of care, at times to ridiculous levels.
Practicing defensive medicine, in order to reduce the risk of getting sued, results in many referrals that aren't strictly necessary. Trivial example:
30 years ago: Kid breaks arm, primary care doctor sees him ($), reads xray himself, puts a cast on, done.
Today: Kid breaks arm, primary care doctor sees him ($), refers to orthopedic surgeon ($$$), who orders xrays, which are read by a radiologist ($$$ for the consult), puts a cast on, done.
These days, if the primary care doctor takes care of it all himself, and the outcome is less than perfect, he'll get sued, and he'll lose because he didn't refer the patient. My point is just that American medicine has overused specialty consults for so long that it's become the standard of care, and now anyone who doesn't make the costly, unnecessary CYA consult risks getting crucified by a lawsuit. The obscene state of malpractice laws in this country have created enormous hidden costs in these uneccessary referrals.
Of course, everbody wants their sprained ankles seen by an orthopedic surgeon because, as you pointed out:
Once they hit their deductible they don't care what it costs at all.
This is just one more reason why socialized medicine is a bad idea. The absolute last thing the US needs is another layer of insulation between patients and the real cost of health care.
Re:American prices out of line... (Score:3, Insightful)
If that were true for most people, the drug companies wouldn't be wasting money on advertising...
They're not stupid, you know. They make huge amounts of money, and they make it by knowing which investments lead to a big return. Advertising is one of them.
If you were suffering from impotence, what would you do? You'd probably go to the doctor and ask for something to cure it. Ten years ago you probably wouldn't do that, since you'd be embarassed to do so, and you probably would figure there wouldn't be much they could do for you anyway. And you'd be right most likely. Advertisments for drugs do actually have the positive effect of getting people to go to the doctor for treatment. And, they also have the effect of encouraging people to self-medicate.
In any case, I think that prescription laws are stupid. Suppose my doctor thinks that drug xyz won't do me any good, and might harm me. Suppose I think it will heal me. Why can't I just take it? It's my life, and if I'm stupid enough to ignore my doctor, why shouldn't I be allowed to do so...?
Re:American health care costs (Score:3, Insightful)
1. legalize medicinal pot, that will
A) fix lots of sick people for virtual no cost, who cares if there is no patent and some big corp gets no money out of it, I can live with dieing companies (those ceos can live on their 10M+ bank accounts easy), not dieing people. And I am not saying they have to smoke it, any one with 1/2 a point of IQ will realise that you can get the THC oils out and apply as a vapor or orally.
B) reduce the wasted (fake) war on drugs which does nothing, but ruin peoples lives by getting in goal or getting records. Or generally just giving them the 'criminal' label which stuffs up their career prospects (damn evil Dupont screws)
C) reduce wasted $$$ on police force/prisons etc... AHH BUT wait, theres private prisons and people are making money, and thats all they care about, not the people.
But I dont expect that to happen, since they are all so currupt and evil , worse than any pot smoker could ever be. May god strike them all down with cancer that will be expensive for their children to pay for.
Re:This is news to ANYBODY? (Score:3, Insightful)
In some countries government programs can be very effective. In the US, however, there is no tradition of that, and the mind set for effective government programs just seems to be completely absent. I think that in the US, a universal health care system could be even worse than what exists now.