Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

dolthub.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 549 posts

Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#411

Post by refurb »

AlphaSite wrote: post #321
refurb wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singapore does not control prices (though it’s moving in that direction), it’s public hospitals are privately run, and it has a system of “forced savings” to make sure patients have enough money to cover out of pocket costs and buy health insurance. It’s ethos is “the patient has to pay something out of pocket, even if it’s just $2”. It’s also more than happy to tell poor patients “if you don’t have enough money, the…

Aren’t all 3 major hospital groups government owned? These are not private hospitals, they may charge you fees, but ultimately they’re government owned.

Actually are correct, they are government owned corporations. There is SingHealth and the NUHS system. But they are corporations, with boards of directors, which is entirely intentional since the government wants "private" competition between providers to drive efficiency.

Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#412

Post by pessimizer »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #345
antasvara wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much do you estimate this is being underfunded, and do you believe proper funding for healthcare would push the percentage of GDP closer to the US number?

You're assuming the US healthcare system isn't equally underfunded. The US has massive doctors shortages (especially in rural areas), and that's not counting all the care the US just doesn't do because people instead just die since they can't afford to go to the hospital.

> You're assuming the US healthcare system isn't equally underfunded.

You don't have to assume. It costs twice as much as the most expensive health systems on earth, but delivers Afghanistan-level life expectancies. The problem isn't that we're spending too little.

Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#413

Post by rayiner »

dfinninger wrote: post #367
jaarse wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a Canadian, and I would never want to give up our single payer system. That being said, Canada has a huge health care problem right now. Frequently they need to close emergency services in major (& minor) cities at night due to staff shortages. The wait times for basic diagnostics is on the order of months (not days or weeks). For example, a relative of mine has lost 90 pounds since the start of the year, complai…

Well, I'm here in a major metro area of the US and it's 6 months or more for every doctor I try to see. Very difficult to get in to see anyone for anything.

I live in a suburban area and I go to the doctor for completely random things for my kids because it’s so easy. I can get appointments to be seen within hours.

Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#414

Post by specialist »

refurb wrote: post #404
specialist wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google healthcare cost per capita vs life expectancy. Last time I checked, Canada, for example, spent 1/3rd less than the USA and Canadians lived a few years longer. IIRC, of the "universal coverage" systems, Switzerland's ACA-like system had the highest per capita, but still less than USA's system. Much has changed these last few years. eg Our life expectancy in the USA has fallen.

Life expectancy is a terrible measure for quality of healthcare. It ignore so many other factors. The only way it could be a suitable measure if you assumed every human in every country was the same except for the healthcare they receive. It's pretty clear they aren't - lifestyle, smoking rates, alcohol and drug abuse, accidents, suicides, genetics. You’re far better to look at things like “survival after cancer diag…

> Life expectancy is a terrible measure for quality of healthcare. ...lifestyle, smoking rates, alcohol and drug abuse, accidents, suicides, genetics.

Only if we assume public health is unrelated to individual health.

Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#415

Post by smcl »

robertlagrant wrote: post #409
smcl wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm mostly interested why the USA suddenly becomes pro-worker when it comes to this expensive and inefficient healthcare system they have. I swear you could be talking to the most hardline GOP guy who wouldn't spit on a trade unionist if they were on fire ... but if you mention, say, single-payer healthcare they'll start weeping for the all the workers in hospitals' billing departments and in health insurance compani…

No, they're worried that single-payer would increase healthcare costs and/or decrease quality. They might be wrong, but that's not why they'd be worried.

I've heard that too, but I have heard on multiple occasions that this will cause a lot of people employed in the field to lose their (sometimes quite well paying) jobs working in billing.

Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#416

Post by refurb »

specialist wrote: post #414
refurb wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life expectancy is a terrible measure for quality of healthcare. It ignore so many other factors. The only way it could be a suitable measure if you assumed every human in every country was the same except for the healthcare they receive. It's pretty clear they aren't - lifestyle, smoking rates, alcohol and drug abuse, accidents, suicides, genetics. You’re far better to look at things like “survival after cancer diag…

> Life expectancy is a terrible measure for quality of healthcare. ...lifestyle, smoking rates, alcohol and drug abuse, accidents, suicides, genetics. Only if we assume public health is unrelated to individual health.

OK, so if we assume that, then is public health worse in Europe because smoking rates are higher than the US? How about higher alcohol consumption?

Using life expectancy to judge the quality of a healthcare system or quality of public health efforts is like judging car quality by how nice the body work is. It's a component, but a relatively minor one in overall quality.

Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#417

Post by permo-w »

DisjointedHunt wrote: post #293
mr_toad wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think you can run BigQuery over a Google drive document.

Least you could do is search for something so simple before asserting it on HN https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/docs/external-data-drive

saying you think something and asserting that it is true are not the same thing

Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#418

Post by [deleted] »

Sakos wrote: post #298
vineyardmike wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not the OP and have no deep knowledge, but I’ve often heard cited that the US out-researches other nations, so we incur “R&D” costs for healthcare that other nations use. Eg pharmaceuticals are researched in the US while the patents are used in other nations through a cost structure that doesn’t allow the original researching party to recoup costs. On-shoring that research also seems to be an advantage -Looking a…

I've never seen any convincing evidence for this theory.

[deleted]

Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#419

Post by tsimionescu »

autoexec wrote: post #355
wahnfrieden wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The workers who are not allowed to sit their entire shifts, a uniquely American cruelty

It is offset at all by all the workers who are forced to sit their entire shifts? It's probably better on our bodies to stand than to sit for 6 hours at a time, but it starts in schools and ends at desk work. Standing desks are nice, and can help, but not everyone has access to them. One of the nice things about working from home is that it allows people to escape that kind of environment to a point, but it just enab…

> It's probably better on our bodies to stand than to sit for 6 hours at a time, but it starts in schools and ends at desk work.

It definitely isn't, standing puts enormous strains on our bodies. Walking for 6h is much easier and better, but sitting out lying down are much better than just standing.

Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#420

Post by pydry »

multiplegeorges wrote: post #303
jaarse wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a Canadian, and I would never want to give up our single payer system. That being said, Canada has a huge health care problem right now. Frequently they need to close emergency services in major (& minor) cities at night due to staff shortages. The wait times for basic diagnostics is on the order of months (not days or weeks). For example, a relative of mine has lost 90 pounds since the start of the year, complai…

Much of the current failures are due to conservative provincial governments (looking at you, Ontario...) purposely underfunding before and into the pandemic. We are now reaping what they have sown. This is a classic "underfund to prove the system doesn't work thus we must privatize it!" move.

This is happening in the UK too.

The NHS is still wildly popular so it's politically impossible to privatize from the outside in but it's becoming less popular as its effectiveness declines due to expanding mismanagement, underfunding and corruption when awarding contracts.

The frog has to be boiled slowly though.

Post reply on HN