A common complaint here is that the single payer systems / public run systems have very long wait times compared to private US systems (this is true where I live as well. A simple MRI is a five month wait and that requires traveling to a different city).
Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices
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Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices
#422Aren't the costs of the US healthcare system largely driven by the cost of the healthcare workforce - basically, not enough trained personnel leading to the absence of competition, leading to doctors getting paid much more than they should?
Of course it's going to be more complicated, with doctors' insurance issues and the price of meds into the mix, but still, how far does this factor goes into explaining the extraordinary cost of getting a basic treatment (let alone surgery) in the US?
Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices
#423Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like an application for ML, to determine which codes frequently coincide per-patient at each provider and then assign those groupings to cross-provider "Treatment XYZ" buckets to enable apples-to-apples comparisons.
I would think a basic statistical analysis should suffice.
most software billed as having 'ML' capabilities is just basic statistical analysis anyway - but that doesn't make for good marketing-speak.
Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
see: page 20 https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/tools/TL200/TL221... > We could certainly do much better, but blaming health care cost on metabolic diseases is disingenuous. How so? Only recommendation for all these chronic conditions is 'diet and exercise' is it not ? Obesity isn't the only one. I am not obese , not even close, but I have hyperlipidemia. I am managing it with 'diet and exercise' after initia…
Thank you for bringing this up. The medical community's intense obsession with people's size and shape over their health causes a lot of misleading conclusions and misguided efforts. If you walk into the doctor's office underweight and concerned about an issue you're having, the doctor doesn't put you on a strict fettuccine Alfredo and hamburger diet before treating you. If you're overweight and concerned about an is…
Whether or not you're overweight, when you come in they'll take your vitals and run some standard tests until they find something they can treat and medicate for the rest of your life.
You'll be tested for thyroid dysfunction, for diabetes, for hypertension, for all sorts of stuff that won't be on your radar until a blood test turns up "abnormal" results once. Then you'll get pills, all the pills you care to eat and remember, there is no road map for getting off those pills, you'll just get larger doses and more frequent as your problems worsen (because you're not addressing root causes, just being medicated for "treatable" issues which correspond to existing pharmaceuticals.)
Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices
#425Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The US pays about twice per nurse or doctor in the system, and part of that is because the US pays nearly twice for most skilled work. which is in turn because in the US an average GP comes out of medical school with $200k-300k of student debt that has to have interest serviced and paid off within some 10-20 year timespan. That cost ultimately ends up being borne by the patient and their insurance. unfortunately th…
Probably because the people pushing for free college etc tend to be ones studying the humanities, which gives people a bad impression of the whole thing. People make fun of Fox News touting lesbian dance studies majors, but the reality is most people don't support funding your bullshit gender studies degree with their tax dollars. > the AMA agrees there is a problem and is onboard with expanding the pipeline Oh come…
>>Oh come on, they could start by accepting everyone with a 3.5+ and decent MCAT instead of requiring that you have a 3.95, volunteering experience, clinical experience, and near perfect MCATs. The path is unattractive because it's filled with bullshit requirements that don't matter.
I for one am glad that it s hard for doctors to get into med school - allowing less qualified people to practice medicine sure doesn't sound like a recipe for good outcomes.
As far as the non-academic 'bullshit requirements' as you put it, they matter - last thing you want is someone going to med school because they were above average smart, and there parents told them to goto med school (it happens) - much better to have people that have been in the trenches dealing with medical issues at some level who know what they are getting into - i.e. people who perhaps were a nurse first, or EMT or paramedic, or even a non-skilled person who provided personal care to dementia patients in nursing home - just being smart isn't enough to be a good doctor - doctors deal with a lot of things that most of society would find distasteful - better to weed out those folks before they ever set foot on campus taking up the slot of someone else that is more well rounded and proven they are not choosing medicine just because it pays well and their parents pushed them to it.
Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices
#426USA Healthcare is 19.5% of GDP. Canada + Australia + UK + (a few similar countries) average 10.5% of GDP. The USA healthcare price gouges via run away prices. Healthcare corporations corrupting congress is the fuel that forces this on people (and breaks a free market).
But looking from another perspective - if healthcare is 20% of GDP, an awful amount of people are therefore paid directly due to this "waste". Any improvement in efficiency would mean those people lose out on jobs. A new use for them must be found, or there will be massive unemployment (at least, short-medium term).
Two economists are walking in a forest when they come across a pile of shit.
The first economist says to the other “I’ll pay you $100 to eat that pile of shit.” The second economist takes the $100 and eats the pile of shit.
They continue walking until they come across a second pile of shit. The second economist turns to the first and says “I’ll pay you $100 to eat that pile of shit.” The first economist takes the $100 and eats a pile of shit.
Walking a little more, the first economist looks at the second and says, "You know, I gave you $100 to eat shit, then you gave me back the same $100 to eat shit. I can't help but feel like we both just ate shit for nothing."
"That's not true," responded the second economist. "We increased the GDP by $200!"
Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices
#427Earlier quoted context omitted.
> to justify the unethical system that allows millions to die unnecessarily Which people are those millions? The system saves millions of lives that would have died in generations past. How do you factor that into your claim?
There are lot of people who don't go to a doctor when they should. Even taking an ambulance after an accident is a gamble a lot of people can't afford.
>>There are lot of people who don't go to a doctor when they should.
and there are an awful lot of people, even if it is free or paid for by a great health insurance plan that ALSO don't go to the doctor when they should - thats just human nature
and on the other hand, lots of people running up ten's of thousands of dollars in unnecessary tests because they are hypochondriacs and run to the doctor every time they have a sniffle and demand every treatment and test under the sun.
Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices
#428Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, and we should also think of the blacksmiths and the elevator operators, milkmen and horse carriage drivers, who will unfortunately be out of a job if we make our society more efficient.
Why not go further still. Smash a window so that window makers can make a living, slash someone's tires so that tire companies can employ more people.
I heard some people in all seriousness explain, that they throw their garbage just on the way and not in a bin, to create cleaning jobs.
Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices
#429Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Switzerland has very strictly and non-deniable obligatory minimum (very broad in coverage) insurance So does the US: https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/minimum-essential-covera... > there are treatments and operations (e.g. congenital defects and invalidity-related) that are directly billed to the public social insurance (funded by salary deductions) to help health insurances reduce their risk. > Switzerland's com…
TIL Blue Cross is a "non-profit"
Blue Cross is sort of a franchise system with different regional/state franchises. All of them were originally nonprofit but many have changed over the years to be for-profit (notably BCBS of California, for example). My local franchise, BCBS of North Carolina is still not for profit: Blue Cross NC is a fully taxed, not-for-profit North Carolina company with major operations centers in Durham, Fayetteville and Winston-Salem. https://www.bluecrossnc.com/about-us
Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
... what in the blue hell...?
I got a little excited, that's all I can say about the flow.
But there is an undercurrent of betrayal, there absolutely is, undermining everything, only visible if you get trapped in it, if not it looks like a meaningless whoopsie.