421–430 of 539 posts
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it's free.
We’re just gonna pretend Europe, Australia, Japan, Canada etc. don’t exist?
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My employer dropped dental insurance a few years ago. They never gave me a pay bump to compensate. Now I spend $1,600/year on cleanings for a family of 4. At least it is out of my HSA, so pre-tax.
$400 for a cleaning?! You gotta negotiate better! That is an outrageous price!
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According to Wikipedia, there are only .5% of all physicians in the US who can perform neurosurgery. So it's probably safe to say the demand for brain surgery is much higher than the supply. This incentivises people to become doctors that perform such complecated procedures as it takes a lot of time and a lot of money to be able to do those things. If you were to force doctors to perform work on people that can't aff…
If money were the only incentive to life no one would become a schoool teacher. Your summary is missing something.
Also, if you are a doctor and your primary motivation is helping people, wouldn't you want to help many people with simple problems, than few people with highly complex problems (which most likely have a higher risk of failure)? There is already a shortage of doctors doing the easy stuff.
I just don't see the incentive for doing difficult procedures other than with money.
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This isn’t a very good analogy. In a just world, nobody would go hungry, nor would anyone die prematurely or suffer needlessly due to lack of care. We can obviously afford both, in this country, just like they can everywhere else in Europe or Canada. So this entire argument about insurance is a straw man. It’s not the doctors who set up this world. It’s people who want to pay less taxes, but blame doctors.
Regarding Europe, which I happen to have friends all over: it's not exactly as rosy. European countries do have more doctors per capita, which is good. They don't have nearly as much resources in the system, though. Come to a doctor with a bad cough, get a prescription for Paracetamol. You got to have a pretty bad infection to get a prescription for an antibiotic. Endure a long discussion with a doctor to renew an an…
In Japan I have had mixed experiences:
Good:
* It's relatively cheap. Apprently the government sets prices. The government offers medical insurence. It costs based on previous year's income. i've paid as little as $15 a month and as high as $300. I don't know the range. It only covers 70%. My employeers have provided insurance that covered more.
* Fast. There are no appointments or a least I've never made one. Just walk in, usually no more than a 20 minute wait. Did have one long wait 1998.
* Some pretty good tech. Had back problems once. Got an MRI immediately (Japan has/had ?x more MRI machines than USA). Last week had an unusual pain in neck, went in, got immediate endoscope pictures inside neck.
Note that in Japan, unlike the USA, hospitals are a place you can just walk in for a cold. (you can also go to small clinics and private doctors). The advantage of going to a hospital is they have more specialists and equipmnent. The disadvantage is sometimes longer waits and probably not as close. I only bring that up as a contrast to USA where a hospital is someplace you don't go unless it's an emergency or surgery or something else really serious.
Bad:
* Bar to be a doctor much lower. Have had several very quack doctor expeiences in Japan. Have not yet had a quack doctor experience in USA
* Unclean. Have been to several facilities that seemed unclean to me. Machines that looked like people had coughed on them for years and had never been cleaned. Not all places but enough the experience has stuck out. No idea what that's about but just surprised since my experience in the USA was that medical services are or at least appear spotless.
Unknown:
* Nurses require no training (or so I was told by a nurse). You just go apply for job like a fast food job. Is that better (lower cost) or worse (less training).
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Oh I'm sure the military doesn't pay that much. They get to leverage staff doctors, and negotiated rates. You know like other countries with single payer systems, etc. get. People in the U.S. get screwed, because hospitals are businesses, and they know how much they can charge to make a profit. When a hospital has an entire legal arm just for suing people in court, because they aren't making their payments, you know…
isn't the problem actually that there is no limit on what they can charge? if i have an accident they won't ask me if i agree on the price, they just charge me while i'm unconscious. i don't get to negotiate prices and the ambulance will take me to the closest hospital, not the cheapest for me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to Wikipedia, there are only .5% of all physicians in the US who can perform neurosurgery. So it's probably safe to say the demand for brain surgery is much higher than the supply. This incentivises people to become doctors that perform such complecated procedures as it takes a lot of time and a lot of money to be able to do those things. If you were to force doctors to perform work on people that can't aff…
If money were the only incentive to life no one would become a schoool teacher. Your summary is missing something.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Negotiating power alone isn’t going to drive $1.5 trillion in costs out of the system Of course it could. It works in Germany! And France! And Switzerland! Why not here? Look, I don't know how this can possibly work with our current system. It cannot be solved by the market alone. There's no transparency in the current system. Insurers can just keep passing price increases along. And many Americans want "the best"…
My point centers around two things; 1) We cannot provide the same services with the same mechanisms, processes, and infrastructure at 50% of the current price. The margin simply isn’t that high. Everything from the design of the hospital, to the regulations around the equipment provisioned in each room, to the processes followed by staff throughout a given patient visit need to change, along with the specific tools a…
In any case, the current system is both unfair and unsustainable. Something has to give.
Imagine if grocery stores forced us to choose one of a few dozen grocery "insurance" memberships to buy groceries, and negotiated directly with the insurers. No prices are labeled in store, they just detect whatever you take and send you a bill at the end of the month. (Differing brands of the same food product are not available in store of course.) Individuals are charged 3-100x more per product than negotiated rate…
Then imagine that there are some people who can't afford the food they need in the grocery store and are going to die. Alternatives and transparent pricing isn't going to make brain surgery affordable to the average consumer.
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Stop getting sick and having to use the healthcare system. So no, not really, unless we change our living habits as a civilization, but then we get old anyway.
Well, I think there's some literal truth to that. Even though I seem weirdly unable to get sick, and I've been to a doctor once in 15 years (just to get a note! required by other insurance), I still have to pay unfunny premiums. So being super healthy still doesn't help. AND YET if everyone in aggregate used less healthcare, I bet it would do more to move the needle than anything a politican plans. Americans are deep…
Even if you pay a lot (because you can, with high income) there is a clear benefit for the people around you, not just cooperations. Basically, everyone around you is safe, and that's a good feeling.
(Germany)
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This isn’t a very good analogy. In a just world, nobody would go hungry, nor would anyone die prematurely or suffer needlessly due to lack of care. We can obviously afford both, in this country, just like they can everywhere else in Europe or Canada. So this entire argument about insurance is a straw man. It’s not the doctors who set up this world. It’s people who want to pay less taxes, but blame doctors.
Regarding Europe, which I happen to have friends all over: it's not exactly as rosy. European countries do have more doctors per capita, which is good. They don't have nearly as much resources in the system, though. Come to a doctor with a bad cough, get a prescription for Paracetamol. You got to have a pretty bad infection to get a prescription for an antibiotic. Endure a long discussion with a doctor to renew an an…
You are not the norm.