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Single-payer healthcare would save $450B and 68k lives a year: study

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Re: Single-payer healthcare would save $450B and 68k lives a year: study

#201

Post by codegeek »

chasd00 wrote: post #131
burnte wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in healthcare as a CIO. I interact with all of our billing systems, processes, and departments. Frankly, I think the estimate of a 14% savings due to reduced administration to be low. Single payer would eliminate 30% of non-medical jobs in my company. Teams eliminated or dramatically reduced: * VOB, verification of benefits, they fight with the insurance company just to determine what coverage the patient has,…

i said this in another thread but you're assuming the single paying entity gets it even close to right.

May be it doesn't. So should we just accept the Status quo ? I personally cannot and this issue is very important to me.

Re: Single-payer healthcare would save $450B and 68k lives a year: study

#202

Post by AcerbicZero »

noodle wrote: post #94
Loughla wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I've never understood about the arguments against single payer: >You can't pick your own doctor I already can't. If they're in network, I'm good, but if they're out of network - like my doctor was - then I have to find a new one. >You can't pick your treatments My spouse was denied medication by an insurance company because it was too new. So. >You don't get to have all the healthcare you want I already h…

> Not sure what other arguments there are. The one I've heard the most lately is that "people like their existing insurance companies", which I think is an almost absurd thing to say on its face. But its probably just a way to say "people don't like change" that doesn't get insurance companies or "people" salty about it.

I don't know if I could say I "liked" my insurance company, but I can say with a great deal of certainty that my interactions with my insurance company are orders of magnitude more frustration free (enjoyable seemed like too much of a stretch) than any of my mandatory interactions with State/Federal government.

My worst interaction with an insurance company in my entire adult life was being billed in an annoying fashion and having to sit on hold for half an hour to get it fixed. Compared to just my last trip to the DMV the insurance company is already pretty far ahead.

For completeness sake, I'm actually not particularly opposed to re-working the healthcare system. While I lean strongly libertarian, I'm pragmatic enough to understand the current half commie, half free market health care system is entirely untenable, and I seriously doubt it will be acceptable to move in the free market direction anytime soon.

Re: Single-payer healthcare would save $450B and 68k lives a year: study

#203

Post by ChrisClark »

grayed-down wrote: post #95
dboreham wrote: post #6

As Churchill said... “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing. After they have tried everything else.”

Would the right thing be single-payer or what would have to replace it once the economy and the medical profession have been destroyed?

Will someone please think of the billionaires?

Re: Single-payer healthcare would save $450B and 68k lives a year: study

#204

Post by pnutjam »

beat wrote: post #149
onemoresoop wrote: post #79

I'm paying nearly 20k (parents+child) on insurance I don't have time to use (and luckily no serious need) and once my son went to see his pediatrician and our 'private' insurance company (that i'm not going to name) sent us bill of $500, for a check-up. We disputed the charge with the insurance and they agreed to wave the payment next month. Next month comes and guess what? The same letter comes in mail. We disputed…

This is where I think political leaders (Democrat or Republican) could do really well. It's not just making sure people are covered. It's the existential dread of dealing with opaque, unpredictable, and incomprehensible bureaucracy that can make life-and-death decisions or drop financially crippling bills in your lap, even if you have good insurance . The American health care system isn't just bad for the poor. It's…

This is literally the argument that Liz Warren and Bernie have been making, not to mention other Democrats.

Re: Single-payer healthcare would save $450B and 68k lives a year: study

#205

Post by OrgNet »

The worst thing for me is if you go, for example, to the emergency room, the hospital charges you something like $200 and you think that is the end of it, but about a month later, other bills start coming in: $300 for xray, $350 for doctor X, etc... health insurance in the US sucks.

Re: Single-payer healthcare would save $450B and 68k lives a year: study

#206

Post by claudeganon »

wahern wrote: post #160
mgraczyk wrote: post #7

In the study, nearly all the computed savings comes from two sources. 1. Decrease in pharmaceutical costs as a result of better bargaining power. 2. Decrease in administrative overhead, calculated by extrapolating the overhead in medicare to the entire US healthcare economy. I don't have an informed opinion on either of these estimates, but my intuition is that #1 seems reasonable while #2 seems unlikely. The justifi…

In 2017 retail prescription drug expenditures were $333 billion, accounting for just 10% of total healthcare expenditures.[1] I realize prescription drug prices are insane, the patent regime is broken, and the industry is generally messed up. But at 10%, relying on lower cost prescription drugs to save the day isn't going to help. People feel it's a bigger issue than it is (relative to the overall problem), because i…

> those who want a public option or single-payer--willfully ignore the evidence.

What you say is true about the public option, because it incentivizes insurance companies to dump expensive patients onto the public dole, while charging ever increasing premiums for those who either don’t need healthcare or are self-rationing because of things like co-pays or high-deductibles. Obamacare and Medicaid in tandem also don’t work for the same reason.

It’s not true for single payer systems, who across the world pay less than what we pay in the US. Without special pleading, you have to explain why they’re able to do it and we cannot, otherwise it seems that you’re ignoring the evidence. State-level examples don’t really count here either, because their underlying costs are being determined by prices pressures in the entire US market.

(Also, CAP takes money from pharma, the insurance industry, and hospital conglomerates, so they’re not a reliable source on any of this).

Re: Single-payer healthcare would save $450B and 68k lives a year: study

#207

Post by genomer »

briandear wrote: post #126
mgraczyk wrote: post #7

In the study, nearly all the computed savings comes from two sources. 1. Decrease in pharmaceutical costs as a result of better bargaining power. 2. Decrease in administrative overhead, calculated by extrapolating the overhead in medicare to the entire US healthcare economy. I don't have an informed opinion on either of these estimates, but my intuition is that #1 seems reasonable while #2 seems unlikely. The justifi…

This study however, doesn't seem to account for the dramatically increased usage of the system. If medical care were "free" -- the demand would quickly outstrip supply -- there's a real cost to that.

That's an interesting point and I completely agree, but wouldn't America's already real lack of "supply" buffer this a bit? I have to wait several weeks to get into my personal family doctor, and it took over 4 hours to be admitted during our last visit to the ER (we went in because of a suspected ectopic pregnancy, which it turned out to be).

It seems like the physician shortage will only continue to worsen. https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/press-releases/new-findin...

Edit: Basically, I think a lot of people will still be left without adequate health care in minor cases, but at least the most urgent cases will be taken care of without leaving people bankrupt.

Re: Single-payer healthcare would save $450B and 68k lives a year: study

#208

Post by n9 »

dx87 wrote: post #73
elicash wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's take smoking as an example. You think there are people out there who will smoke, knowing that it causes lung cancer, because they figure government will pick up the tab for the chemo? Bizarre, but ok, if so, why doesn't having insurance give them the same incentive?

My wife's aunt has been on disability for years because she hurt her back and refuses to quit smoking. The doctors said the smoking is preventing her back from healing correctly, and 3 back surgeries later, she still hasn't quit. Because she's poor and on disability, she doesn't have to pay for any of it, and is pefectly content sitting in her trailer watching TV and taking pain killers as her health deteriorates.

This is simply not a compelling argument against reform. It is a sad story and surely there will be people like this abusing any system, but making people face down bankrupts and death of loved ones is not the correct incentive against abuse of socially funded systems in my book.

Re: Single-payer healthcare would save $450B and 68k lives a year: study

#209

Post by onemoresoop »

apta wrote: post #161
onemoresoop wrote: post #79

I'm paying nearly 20k (parents+child) on insurance I don't have time to use (and luckily no serious need) and once my son went to see his pediatrician and our 'private' insurance company (that i'm not going to name) sent us bill of $500, for a check-up. We disputed the charge with the insurance and they agreed to wave the payment next month. Next month comes and guess what? The same letter comes in mail. We disputed…

> And on top of it I get a better deal if I use no insurance at all for prescriptions. Interesting. So is it also the case that you can "negotiate" medicine prices? Is the actual price then different from what is on the tag?

The price, at least in the US is as much as they could ask for. If they could get from you $1,000,000 on aspirin they would, trust me. It's called free market. They say that the market will fix any problem. But in reality it's not really free market.

The manufacture price is insignificant but the bulk of the price is pinned on other things like R&D and other costs the pharmaceuticals claim. There are costs but there's also a huuuuuuuge profit to be made.

Re: Single-payer healthcare would save $450B and 68k lives a year: study

#210

Post by rayiner »

codegeek wrote: post #178
rayiner wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medicare billing isn’t any different, it’s just a different payer.

Yes but at least, Govt. is not looking to make record profits.

No, but government has strong incentives to deny claims to control costs. At least at the state level, governments have gotten extremely aggressive about money collection. E.g. $50 administrative fee for not paying a $4.00 toll.
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