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The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

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Re: The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

#241

Post by gumby »

arcticfox wrote: post #167
joering2 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just got hemoroids frozen and cut with laser. Cost here in USA under premium insurance was $12,000. Went to Germany got it done on the same equipment in luxury stay for 14 days at $870. Plus $800 plane tickets. Meanwhile a friend of mine had a heart attack. As a Bank of America emplyee he had somewhat goog insurance that paid some. He was left with $180,000 bill.

> As a Bank of America emplyee he had somewhat goog insurance that paid some. He was left with $180,000 bill. Forgive my ignorance but how is that possible? The highest out of pocket maximums for Marketplace plans is $15700 for an entire family.

In a hospital you'll likely be seen by a variety of providers some, or even many of whom are not in your network. You insurer will pay some amount out and then the provider will bill you for the rest...which can be huge. This bill is unrelated to your insurance and is unrelated to any out of pocket maximum. That maximum only relates to copays etc as part of your insurance.

Re: The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

#242

Post by refurb »

rayiner wrote: post #65
cameronh90 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does appear to be the case that the US funds most pharma R&D due to Americans overpaying relative to the rest of the word. In some cases (China, India) this is due to weak IP protection, but in other cases (Canada, UK, Europe) it's more to do with our governments having a stronger negotiating position and setting hard limits on what they'll spend for a given benefit to patients. Some characterise this as freeloadi…

> The pharma industry seems to run at a very healthy profit margin compared to most other industries. But not compared to other high risk, capital intensive industries, i.e. tech.

Any those margins only look great if you ignore the billions of investment that failed to produce $1 of revenue.

Re: The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

#243

Post by asdff »

jjeaff wrote: post #190
grecy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that every company involved in the healthcare industry in America (drug companies, insurance companies, hospitals, etc.) make hundreds of billions (or trillions) in profit each and every year. The reason for the high prices is because healthcare in the US is an extremely, extremely lucrative for-profit industry.

They have lower profit margins than most tech companies like apple.

Apples and oranges.

Re: The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

#244

Post by 01100011 »

joering2 wrote: post #159
euske wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the main reasons why I gave up career in the States and came back to my home country (Japan) was healthcare. I had a day surgery in the US and the whole experience (i.e. bills) just scared heck out of me. I am very happy with the system here. Everything is extremely efficient compared to the US. A little while ago, I had this mysterious headache and went to an orthopedist, dentist, psychiatrist, neurosurgeon t…

Just got hemoroids frozen and cut with laser. Cost here in USA under premium insurance was $12,000. Went to Germany got it done on the same equipment in luxury stay for 14 days at $870. Plus $800 plane tickets. Meanwhile a friend of mine had a heart attack. As a Bank of America emplyee he had somewhat goog insurance that paid some. He was left with $180,000 bill.

How was the recovery?

Re: The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

#245

Post by JAlexoid »

dragontamer wrote: post #41
zzleeper wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how it works. You invest if it's worth investing, not if you just have the money laying around. Paying a few billion dollars to a big pharma company is not going to make them invest more in research. They will instead pay the money out as dividends. The goal of patents is to create incentives for future research, but if you change the rules by increasing the extent of EpiPen patents after the drug was crea…

> Paying a few billion dollars to a big pharma company is not going to make them invest more in research. They will instead pay the money out as dividends. This is a misconception. No investor wants their money back. Investors want a promise of MORE money back in the future. If investors wanted their money back immediately, they wouldn't have bought stock in the first place! The vast majority of investors prefer (ex:…

This depends on the investor. Stock market investor, the one who's purchase of stock doesn't provide the company with any funds, cares not how income is delivered. But you're right on one thing - investors want better future prospects, however those are achieved.

Re: The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

#246

Post by whiddershins »

I believe there is an economic analysis I saw mentioned by Scott Alexander that basically the cost of healthcare can be predicted as a function of the quality of care and the wealth of the country.

Allegedly healthcare in the United States costs exactly as much as that formula would predict.

I don’t have a citation here, and if anyone has one that would be great.

But if it is true, we might be trying to fix something that isn’t broken in any of the ways people intuitively conclude.

Re: The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

#247

Post by masonic »

ridgeguy wrote: post #85
airstrike wrote: post #2

It's worth noting that the U.S. market does pay for the lion's share of patented drugs, effectively funding a significant portion of R&D that benefits the whole world years later when generics come into market (at least for those drugs which are not costly to manufacture, which happen to be the majority). I'm not saying this model is right. I'm just saying that doing away with it will have fundamental consequences to…

>It's worth noting that the U.S. market does pay for the lion's share of patented drugs... And even in doing so, we're getting contaminated meds. See the article at Ars,[1] which is based on a recent study from Kaiser.[2] [1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/scary-reality-meds-t... [2] https://khn.org/news/how-tainted-drugs-reach-market-make-pat...

  we're getting contaminated meds
... from overseas. All the examples in that article were non-US manufacturers.

Re: The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

#248

Post by fzeroracer »

nickchuck wrote: post #168
mikeg8 wrote: post #81

The book The Healing of America by T.R. Reid, 2010 was a phenomenal look at this subject and the conclusion was this: we are the only developed nation whose government allows for-profit health insurance companies to exist with ZERO regulation to cap healthcare prices. Because of this, we spend 20% of every dollar on "administrative" costs compared to 3%-7% in the European and Asian countries. The goal for American he…

From what I understand, the healthcare market isn't free at all. LOTS of regulation is what has caused this mess I believe.

The american healthcare market is possibly the most 'free' one in the world. Yet we're still failing with regards to countries that have far more regulations and restrictions.

It's time to stop perpetuating this myth. Especially in a thread directly about how the US overpays for everything compared to literally every other developed country on the planet.

Re: The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

#249

Post by refurb »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #66
MichaelApproved wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let the free market work Respectfully, enough with this free market garbage. The healthcare industry is not a free market, it can never be. It's not possible for the consumer to be educated. Even if you put emergencies aside, when an unconscious person can't start price shopping emergency rooms, you still have regular office visits that are impossible to price shop. Ask yourself when the last time you asked your ph…

> Respectfully, enough with this free market garbage. Kenneth Arrow pretty much proved in 1963 that 'the free market' doesn't work for healthcare. Nothing since has produced a shred of evidence that he was wrong.

Seems to work pretty well for vision correction and cosmetic surgery though. So Kenneth Arrow's hypothesis can't be correct.

Re: The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

#250

Post by InclinedPlane »

airstrike wrote: post #2

It's worth noting that the U.S. market does pay for the lion's share of patented drugs, effectively funding a significant portion of R&D that benefits the whole world years later when generics come into market (at least for those drugs which are not costly to manufacture, which happen to be the majority). I'm not saying this model is right. I'm just saying that doing away with it will have fundamental consequences to…

This is not an explanation. The amount of money spent on actual drug R&D in the US is a tiny blip compared to the excess costs in the whole system.
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