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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

#471

Post by pnutjam »

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.

Every "Family" doctor has stopped practicing or gone to a no insurance model that caters to wealthy people. You can only get "internal medicine" doctors for primary care. I've seen waits ranging from 4 months to a year, depending on what your dealing with.

It's also impossible to get a 2nd opinion. The specialists all tend to belong to the same groups so you'll call a different doctor and eventually get shunted back to the exact same doctor you started out with. Where the the competition?

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

#472

Post by tiahura »

riskable wrote: post #49
mskar wrote: post #43

I work in data at https://www.carrumhealth.com/ , and I've been parsing this data for weeks. The transparency prices allow us to meaningfully negotiate with providers, and make tangible, incremental progress toward cheaper health care. Providers and existing insurance carriers leverage information asymmetry to control the market otherwise. For context, we bundle the 100's of itemized costs into a single, static bill…

How much do you think it costs to maintain all these negotiated contracts VS just having a single payer system with the same price for all procedures?

Not much.

The net cost of insurance represents 6.4% of all healthcare spending.

https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/patient-support-adv...

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

#474

Post by pnutjam »

rayiner wrote: post #413
dfinninger wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Midwest, large city; pediatrician is same day, Allergist same week, Developmental Pediatrics was 4 months, Pediatric Ophthalmology was a year, it really varies. I'm lucky to have all these specialities available, people drive 2 or 3 hours to use the Midwest Eye Institute.

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

#475

Post by briffle »

vineyardmike wrote: post #280
e_i_pi_2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you consider the amount that the US spends per capita on healthcare relative to other countries for the same standard of care a "failure" of the healthcare industry? Or is there some other reason healthcare "just costs more" here? Also wondering what you think a solution is - single-payer for better and simpler price negotiations, or some other approach? My main concern is if we're spending 20% of GDP on something…

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…

Then why do they spend so much more on marketing than R&D?

https://www.ahip.org/news/articles/new-study-in-the-midst-of...

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

#476

Post by grandinj »

jaarse wrote: post #272
seaourfreed wrote: post #246

USA 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).

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…

And also...

For many years Canada (and similar countries) have relied on cutting costs by importing health care professionals from other countries. That pipeline has now shrunk considerably, resulting in the exposure of the underlying problem.

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

#477

Post by mikem170 »

jen20 wrote: post #334
mikem170 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Across the board price controls seem to be a common to the various European health care systems. It is my understanding that upper limits are set for the cost of medicine. There is quite a bit of variety across Europe - U.K. is 100% government run, France is a public/private mix, Germany is similar to Obamacare in some ways, others are single payer, apparently some are private, also. But I've read that they all have…

> U.K. is 100% government run This is not true. Private healthcare is alive and well in the UK in the supply of both privately and publicly-commissioned healthcare.

You're right, thanks for the correction on that.

Wikipedia said 8% of health care in England is private, mostly specialist, often through employer provided plans meant to augment NHS. The other 92% of health care is directly supplied by NHS [0]. So they appear to be a mix of public and private, like many other systems.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_England

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

#478

Post by roflyear »

3pt14159 wrote: post #467
Der_Einzige wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're coping. Americans are responsible for about half of the world's medical research.

That's factually untrue. China and Japan alone match the USA, and when adjusting for percent of GDP the USA isn't even in the top five countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_research_...

Why would you adjust this value instead of using absolute terms?

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

#479

Post by themaninthedark »

stackbutterflow wrote: post #281
themaninthedark wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use your elbow to turn off the faucet(as long as it is lever type, if twist type then good luck). I want paper towels for the door knobs/pulls and the trash can should be located near the door so I can throw it out after opening the door.

Or make the door push to leave, pull to go in. I don't understand why it's not a thing.

Bathroom doors are usually off a small hallway, sometimes a busy one. By design, they don't have windows.

So you run the risk of hitting people with the door. Also, you will still need to interact with the door to open the lock. Having a door that unlocks if you push on it would be a bad thing for people who use the bathroom with their children.

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

#480

Post by jkestner »

JackFr wrote: post #431
cuteboy19 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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’ll go one better - pay they rat catchers per rat so they start breeding them.

aka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hanoi_Rat_Massacre
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