Our biggest problem

[MorkandMindy]

My experience of Medicaid was that it was easily a match for the NHS. Given how much money the US government is already paying out for healthcare through Medicaid, Medicare, the VA hospital system, and in a whole bunch of other ways, it looks very much like there is an upgrade path through Medicaid to full cover for those who choose it.


UPDATE: my experience of US healthcare has been that it is very good, excellent people struggling in a crazy system and they agree with that observation.

The statistics are poor because so many people just don't get health care for fairly easy to solve problems. The people with fantastic health insurance just can't make up for the deaths among those who don't have any.

 

[MorkandMindy]

My income rose above what was acceptable for Medicaid so my Medicaid was abruptly terminated and then I had to wait for the enrollment period to get Obamacare. I tried many alternatives but that's my horror story in a nutshell.

The levels of care are in my experience very good, the problem is the immense complexity, and enrollment periods, and this is allowed and that isn't except... but not if... and if you have any part of Medicare at all then you are not allowed Obamacare.

 

[MorkandMindy]

Ultimately it comes down to whether we want to employ a large part of the working population running a complex pointless healthcare-related bureaucracy, as way of reducing unemployment

or whether people should be released from those very secure but stressful jobs, to do work that is actually productive of which there is plenty.

 

[Fantine]

5 reasons why free markets don't work in health care:
Five Reasons Free Markets Don't Work in Health Care | HuffPost

 

[98cwitr]

Our nation's biggest problem or our own biggest fear, answer either question. To me they are both the same.

When I go for a medical of any sort, I never know how much it is going to cost, if I can afford it or not, whether my health insurance will pay or not.

A lot of people on CF are middle class and don't have money problems, but for those of us in the lower half of the income range just one CT scan can wipe out a year's savings. That's all it takes. As for chemotherapy the option is pretty simple, die. But it would be a shame to do that for something pretty simple.

For many people medical costs are the Sword of Damocles, something to be forever worried about, a perpetual stress to add to all the other stresses of life.

Fundamental to US economic thinking is that without fear there is no motivation to work, and though that may sound like a fabulous idea, in some cases it has gone too far.


If you think telling others about your biggest fear will help your state of mind then do it. I figured in most people's cases it would be something with a big political content so I put it in this forum.

Best solution to work on for your case: Repeal states' Certificate of Need laws.

My biggest fear is that God turns His back on America.

 

[MorkandMindy]

We already know the British NHS is not by any means the best health care system. There are certainly better examples.

I was in a group where they began squabbling over which healthcare system should be held up as the right one for the US to change to.

1. The US healthcare system could migrate into a medicaid for all system as it already exists, works, and the government is already paying out almost as much to the sundry parts of the existing patchwork system as it would cost to fund the whole thing if it was a far simpler single payer system.

I know Elizabeth Warren did her best to totally sink any kind of single payer system with her crazy high cost 'guesstimates' and then hid the stupidity of them in her platform where she compared 8 medicare for all plans with each other and didn't include her own plan in the list because it was obviously by far the worse anyone had conceived of.

 

[MorkandMindy]

Picking which plan to copy is pointless because we will most likely produce our own, using state-based coverage as Medicaid currently is.

And there isn't a huge difference between them all anyway, notice how all the national systems are less expensive than the US scam and also give better results. Pick any one or create our own.

Despite a lot of dedicated work put in by millions of people, the shear complexity of our system defeats their best intentions.

 

[RDKirk]

I had an out-patient urology procedure done a couple of weeks ago. The pre-procedure examination took 45 minutes and included an in-office scope of my bladder. This was something this doctor does a dozen times a week, and he's one of the most popular and experienced at this procedure in the Dallas area, and in fact, the country.

The charge for this 45-minute examination was $1500. Medicare allowed $500. Most of the men (and only men) who would have this done would be over 65 and on Medicare. Very few men under 65 would need it. So if this doctor is doing a dozen of them a week, then he's certainly aware that Medicare is only going to allow $500.

Moreover, if he's only getting $500 for this examination...and he's still in business...then his real costs must be reasonably less than $500.

So why does he charge $1500, if he can accept $500 and stay in business?

Of course, this isn't the only example of the same thing. In fact, it's the usual case. Medical insurance never pays anywhere close to what caregivers charge...yet the caregivers are able to stay in business.

 

[Pommer]

I had an out-patient urology procedure done a couple of weeks ago. The pre-procedure examination took 45 minutes and included an in-office scope of my bladder. This was something this doctor does a dozen times a week, and he's one of the most popular and experienced at this procedure in the Dallas area, and in fact, the country.

The charge for this 45-minute examination was $1500. Medicare allowed $500. Most of the men (and only men) who would have this done would be over 65 and on Medicare. Very few men under 65 would need it. So if this doctor is doing a dozen of them a week, then he's certainly aware that Medicare is only going to allow $500.

Moreover, if he's only getting $500 for this examination...and he's still in business...then his real costs must be reasonably less than $500.

So why does he charge $1500, if he can accept $500 and stay in business?

Of course, this isn't the only example of the same thing. In fact, it's the usual case. Medical insurance never pays anywhere close to what caregivers charge...yet the caregivers are able to stay in business.

The $1000.00 that isn’t covered can be put into the books as a “loss”?

 

[MorkandMindy]

If you include office rent and something for the front desk and such it is hard to see how anyone could survive on 500 dollars an hour.

For comparison a therapist's office charges 60 to 120 dollars for 45 minutes here in NM though many have a sliding scale, including the office costs, the therapists own pay averages 28.51.

 

[MorkandMindy]

The crucial point is a doctor has your life in their hands so we have to pay them on the 'your money or your life' basis.

So does and airline pilot, a taxi driver, pretty much everybody in fact, so forget the 15 dollars an hour minimum wage, lets go for 1,500.

 

[RDKirk]

The $1000.00 that isn’t covered can be put into the books as a “loss”?

A "loss" only counts if it's a cost, not if it were merely a sales wish. But if it were a true cost, he'd be out of business.

 

[MorkandMindy]

The reason I consider our insane healthcare system to be so important is it puts up all the other costs a lot.

Expenditure per GDP for advanced countries is generally around 10%, for the US it is 17.7%.

This adds on to the cost of every worker and because it is actually a per capita cost ($11,582 per person, man woman and child, in 2019) it is a huge surcharge effectively on all US employees.

 

[RDKirk]

The reason I consider our insane healthcare system to be so important is it puts up all the other costs a lot.

Expenditure per GDP for advanced countries is generally around 10%, for the US it is 17.7%.

This adds on to the cost of every worker and because it is actually a per capita cost ($11,582 per person, man woman and child, in 2019) it is a huge surcharge effectively on all US employees.

One of the reasons illegal immigrant labor is such big business...and will not be done away with by any administration.

 

[morningstar2651]

Best solution to work on for your case: Repeal states' Certificate of Need laws.

My biggest fear is that God turns His back on America.

Why would God be pro-America?

 

[morningstar2651]

So why does he charge $1500, if he can accept $500 and stay in business?

The short answer: capitalism.

The slightly longer answer: the profit motive and insurance companies. The doctor also needs to pay for malpractice insurance and will likely have a large debt to a bank for the student loans they had to take out to learn the skills used in the procedure. The company that holds the student loan, the company that provides malpractice insurance, and the company that provides health insurance all exist for one reason - to make money. They are leeches that exist to profit from the work of the professors that trained the doctor and the work of the doctor that performed the procedure.

They want to make money without having to do any work. They profit off the work of others.

 

[98cwitr]

Why would God be pro-America?

Because He created it.

 

[RDKirk]

The short answer: capitalism.

The slightly longer answer: the profit motive and insurance companies. The doctor also needs to pay for malpractice insurance and will likely have a large debt to a bank for the student loans they had to take out to learn the skills used in the procedure. The company that holds the student loan, the company that provides malpractice insurance, and the company that provides health insurance all exist for one reason - to make money. They are leeches that exist to profit from the work of the professors that trained the doctor and the work of the doctor that performed the procedure.

No, because those are real costs. If they added up to anything like $1500, he would be out of work being paid only $500.

 

[RDKirk]

Because He created it.

God created America only in the same sense that He created the USSR.

 

[MorkandMindy]

The short answer: capitalism.

The slightly longer answer: the profit motive and insurance companies. ...[and bank loan interest]

They want to make money without having to do any work. They profit off the work of others.

Economists class this as 'rent seeking'.

'Rent-seeking is the effort to increase one's share of existing wealth without creating new wealth. Rent-seeking results in reduced economic efficiency through misallocation of resources, reduced wealth-creation, lost government revenue, heightened income inequality, and potential national decline.' Wikipedia