What is the Best Healthcare System and Why?

[createdtoworship]

Sweet.....unions are commies, you know.

unions are good and bad, it just depends. I knew of an electrician that worked at general motors in detroit before they closed their largest plant there. The HR department had to unplug a printer and move it, and they literally could not do it because it involved electricity so they had to call an electrician, well he was on the other side of the campus, and would take many times over 45 minutes to make it there to unplug it, then when the moved it, they would have to call him to plug it back in. Over all moving the printer cost hundreds of dollars in labor.

that is why that plant closed.

so unions are ok, but if you have too strong of a union, you face losing your job due to too high overhead. So there is a fine line and a balance that needs to be in play.

 

[wing2000]

So many people complain about US health insurance, but my insurance is 100% paid for by my employer, and so are my dependents (and I have a choice to pick ppo, hmo, etc). My expensive prescriptions are covered, which saves me thousands of dollars every month. I thank God for my US health insurance.

I suspect very few American employees can say the same (100% employer paid). Do you know how much that plan cost your employer?

In my case, my employer pays 21k per year for a PPO+ / High deductible / HSA family plan. 21k is a lot of money...

 

[wing2000]

As to the op, I only received health care outside the US a couple of times. Last year in Malaysia I went to an "urgent care" type clinic near my hotel for abdominal pain. Within an hour, I was seen by a doctor, tested for infections and given 4 prescriptions (of which I only used one). Cost: $24.

 

[Fantine]

So many people complain about US health insurance, but my insurance is 100% paid for by my employer, and so are my dependents (and I have a choice to pick ppo, hmo, etc). My expensive prescriptions are covered, which saves me thousands of dollars every month. I thank God for my US health insurance.

Do you realize how rare your situation is?
Probably 1% territory.
Not everyone works for Daddy Warbucks, Inc.
Only people I know with benefits like that are people who have VA Healthcare, like my husband.

 

[98cwitr]

In this season of political upheaval in US politics I would like to draw our attention to one particular issue, namely healthcare. I have many friends from around the world who have weighed in favorably and disfavorably about healthcare in their respective counties. My Dutch friends praise their healthcare system, my German and English friends have mixed experiences both in terms of timeliness and quality of healthcare. What is your experience of American healthcare as compared with another country's healthcare? Many of my graduate school friends were from Nordic countries and felt that access was the big difference.

Please reply with a comparison of your experiences. Also, based on that experience, comment on if the other country's program is single payer, insurance-based, combination private/public.

We must dismantle the insurance/healthcare provider oligopoly. Wonder why insurance is so high? Because they're willing to overpay for everything. If you ever have a hospital stay always ask for an itemized bill. It's on us to contest any over charges ($50 for two Tylenol?!) to both our healthcare provider and the insurance company. Our insurance providers obviously don't care.

 

[cow451]

We must dismantle the insurance/healthcare provider oligopoly. Wonder why insurance is so high? Because they're willing to overpay for everything. If you ever have a hospital stay always ask for an itemized bill. It's on us to contest any over charges ($50 for two Tylenol?!) to both our healthcare provider and the insurance company. Our insurance providers obviously don't care.

The big insurance companies had a powerful impact on the development of Romney/Obama Care.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

I was at a restaurant in Georgia today and sat near a guy wearing a MAGA hat. He’s sitting there complaining about not being able to afford adequate care for his chronic condition and racking up huge bills. The irony was palpable.

It would be ironic if America was 'great' because of our ability to provide crutches for all of our cripples.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

We must dismantle the insurance/healthcare provider oligopoly. Wonder why insurance is so high? Because they're willing to overpay for everything. If you ever have a hospital stay always ask for an itemized bill. It's on us to contest any over charges ($50 for two Tylenol?!) to both our healthcare provider and the insurance company. Our insurance providers obviously don't care.

If you have MyChart all costs will appear on your online statement. I went through my last hernia surgery bills and found that one of the operating room doctors was not in my network, resulting in a huge extra co-pay bill. I challenged it and my bill was reduced by that amount. The insurance company agreed that according to my preferred provider plan that 'outside' doctor should never have been in the operating room in the first place. She was not needed and was probably there just to observe, or as a favor (read $) by someone on the OR team, or the hospital itself. It was actually attempted 'retail theft' imo.

 

[High Fidelity]

A mix between public and private. Around 80/20 public.

 

[Hazelelponi]

In this season of political upheaval in US politics I would like to draw our attention to one particular issue, namely healthcare. I have many friends from around the world who have weighed in favorably and disfavorably about healthcare in their respective counties. My Dutch friends praise their healthcare system, my German and English friends have mixed experiences both in terms of timeliness and quality of healthcare. What is your experience of American healthcare as compared with another country's healthcare? Many of my graduate school friends were from Nordic countries and felt that access was the big difference.

Please reply with a comparison of your experiences. Also, based on that experience, comment on if the other country's program is single payer, insurance-based, combination private/public.

My experiences in America with the healthcare system has been phenomenal.. truly.

I am disabled, and dealt with the necessity of multiple surgeries and then much necessary care afterwards, years worth of it, and years to maintain my new normal.

Healthcare in this country was far better prior to Obamacare I will say.

I had excellent health insurance through work prior to disability, so the first portion of my care was with some of the best insurance. After that I went on Medicare due to my disability, and had zero complaints about my care. I went through years of physical therapy and injections on Medicare, and had no complaints. My level of care was the same with good health insurance as well as with Medicare.

After I was able to go back to work which I did for a short time I relied on a charitable organisation which helped with sliding scale doctor fees, since I didn't have insurance at that time.

When my physical health took a turn for the worse and I had to get back on disability I had more problems with healthcare, and was told I couldn't get back on Medicare because I owed them 2 years worth of premiums and had to pay it before they would cover me again.

As I hadn't realized I was still covered during that time by Medicare and had not been using it, I've had problems since as we don't have the money to pay them for the premiums, and I am simply without any coverage.

I'm skating by paying for everything I need out of pocket, and making sure my needs stay to the bare minimum. There's no more charitable organisation helping with sliding scale fees, since everyone largely declared such organizations are unnecessary due to Obama care.. and most medical I know I need is out of our reach.

I had to have an operation recently and did find help getting that operation free through the teaching hospital a 6 hour drive away, but day to day is more difficult now.

We make 200 a month more than what would qualify us for Medicaid, so kind of in a hole atm.

Overall though, medical is excellent here. Likely the best in the world. If not for the care I received, I never would have done so well through my disability, the fast and excellent care in the beginning most necessary to have any quality of life for the last 20 years.

 

[Pommer]

If you have MyChart all costs will appear on your online statement. I went through my last hernia surgery bills and found that one of the operating room doctors was not in my network, resulting in a huge extra co-pay bill. I challenged it and my bill was reduced by that amount. The insurance company agreed that according to my preferred provider plan that 'outside' doctor should never have been in the operating room in the first place. She was not needed and was probably there just to observe, or as a favor (read $) by someone on the OR team, or the hospital itself. It was actually attempted 'retail theft' imo.

Gee, did that take some time to discombobulate?

 

[WolfGate]

My experiences in America with the healthcare system has been phenomenal.. truly.

Overall though, medical is excellent here. Likely the best in the world. If not for the care I received, I never would have done so well through my disability, the fast and excellent care in the beginning most necessary to have any quality of life for the last 20 years.

I am sincerely glad that the doctors and system have been able to help you. However, data does not support your opinion that we have the best health care in the world. I ran a search on world health care rankings and took the first 4 unique results that came up. No cherry picking here. A similar search would show that we also spend far more per capita on health care to get these below average results. For brevity I only linked the first result that came up to show that at the bottom of this post.

US #37 - Heavy on scientific data study.
http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/best-healthcare-in-the-world/
https://www.who.int/healthinfo/paper30.pdf

Not a ranking but lots of charts covering different measures of healthcare comparing wealthy companies.

"Bench-marking U.S. quality measures against those of similarly large and wealthy countries is one way to assess how successful the U.S. has been at improving care for its population, and to learn from systems that often produce better outcomes. The OECD has compiled data on dozens of outcomes and process measures. Across a number of these measures, the U.S. lags behind similarly wealthy OECD countries (those that are similarly large and wealthy based on GDP and GDP per capita). In some cases, such as the rates of all-cause mortality, premature death, death amenable to healthcare, and disease burden, the U.S. is also not improving as quickly as other countries, which means the gap is growing."

How does the quality of the U.S. healthcare system compare to other countries? - Peterson-Kaiser Health System Tracker

Global Citizen's perception survey. US ranks #15
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-co...most-well-developed-public-health-care-system

Commonwealth Fund report examined 9 first world countries, US ranked last

The U.S. ranked last on performance overall, and ranked last or near last on the Access, Administrative Efficiency, Equity, and Health Care Outcomes domains. The top-ranked countries overall were the U.K., Australia, and the Netherlands. Based on a broad range of indicators, the U.S. health system is an outlier, spending far more but falling short of the performance achieved by other high-income countries. The results suggest the U.S. health care system should look at other countries’ approaches if it wants to achieve an affordable high-performing health care system that serves all Americans.

Mirror, Mirror 2017: International Comparison

Data on US expensive health care system
List of countries by total health expenditure per capita - Wikipedia

 

[Allandavid]

My experiences in America with the healthcare system has been phenomenal.. truly.

I am disabled, and dealt with the necessity of multiple surgeries and then much necessary care afterwards, years worth of it, and years to maintain my new normal.

Healthcare in this country was far better prior to Obamacare I will say.

I had excellent health insurance through work prior to disability, so the first portion of my care was with some of the best insurance. After that I went on Medicare due to my disability, and had zero complaints about my care. I went through years of physical therapy and injections on Medicare, and had no complaints. My level of care was the same with good health insurance as well as with Medicare.

After I was able to go back to work which I did for a short time I relied on a charitable organisation which helped with sliding scale doctor fees, since I didn't have insurance at that time.

When my physical health took a turn for the worse and I had to get back on disability I had more problems with healthcare, and was told I couldn't get back on Medicare because I owed them 2 years worth of premiums and had to pay it before they would cover me again.

As I hadn't realized I was still covered during that time by Medicare and had not been using it, I've had problems since as we don't have the money to pay them for the premiums, and I am simply without any coverage.

I'm skating by paying for everything I need out of pocket, and making sure my needs stay to the bare minimum. There's no more charitable organisation helping with sliding scale fees, since everyone largely declared such organizations are unnecessary due to Obama care.. and most medical I know I need is out of our reach.

I had to have an operation recently and did find help getting that operation free through the teaching hospital a 6 hour drive away, but day to day is more difficult now.

We make 200 a month more than what would qualify us for Medicaid, so kind of in a hole atm.

Overall though, medical is excellent here. Likely the best in the world. If not for the care I received, I never would have done so well through my disability, the fast and excellent care in the beginning most necessary to have any quality of life for the last 20 years.

Good grief...! It’s the “best in the world”, but you’re in severe financial difficulties to meet the costs...!??

Lay off the Koolaid mate...

 

[createdtoworship]

Good grief...! It’s the “best in the world”, but you’re in severe financial difficulties to meet the costs...!??

Lay off the Koolaid mate...

many experience very good medical coverage in america. It really depends on how much it costs. But indicating that another user is on par with a mass psychopath who killed followers using cool aid, is sort of over the top. Just try to be nice, not mock others for the purpose of likes or feedback.

 

[Allandavid]

many experience very good medical coverage in america. It really depends on how much it costs. But indicating that another user is on par with a mass psychopath who killed followers using cool aid, is sort of over the top. Just try to be nice, not mock others for the purpose of likes or feedback.

ummmmm....”how much it costs” was my point...

You see............no, never mind...

 

[cow451]

It would be ironic if America was 'great' because of our ability to provide crutches for all of our cripples.

Then "cripples" that require medical devices such as walkers. wheelchairs and crutches should not get them unless they can pay out of pocket?
How Much Does a Wheelchair Cost? - CostHelper.com

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Then "cripples" that require medical devices such as walkers. wheelchairs and crutches should not get them unless they can pay out of pocket?
How Much Does a Wheelchair Cost? - CostHelper.com

My point was that we are congratulating ourselves for providing treatment instead of prevention.

Of course there is little profit for the medical industry in prevention (cynical I know).

 

[cow451]

My point was that we are congratulating ourselves for providing treatment instead of prevention.

Treatment at an early stage prevents or delays the more expensive later stage treatment in many cases. Most healthcare dollars are spent on chronic, incurable and progressive illnesses. Universal coverage -- which can be achieved in a number of ways-- is the obvious best approach.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Treatment at an early stage prevents or delays the more expensive later stage treatment in many cases. Most healthcare dollars are spent on chronic, incurable and progressive illnesses. Universal coverage -- which can be achieved in a number of ways-- is the obvious best approach.

Most people ignore their early stage symptoms until it's too late for such preventative treatment, even those with good health insurance. We have a culture of denial in regard to health problems. We also have a culture of abysmal ignorance about personal health.

 

[usexpat97]

The best healthcare system is when people are honest.

People can corrupt any health system, no matter how good the system. People can make any system work, if they actually prioritize only people's health.