61–70 of 163 posts
I have said this a million times and I will say it again: anyone who thinks the US healthcare system isn’t a flaming train wreck hasn’t used it much. Or is rich enough enough not to care.
Isn’t huge profits the definition of success in capitalism? As a capitalist society shouldn’t there be cheers instead of complaining? This part I don’t understand about American culture.
The success of capitalism is to allow basic trade in smaller communities. Once it scales to the anonymity of the large corporation and the specialist of wealth extraction, it becomes malignant.
People who run businesses that extract wealth from the sick, the old, the dying, or people in other situations where they are not really able to make free choices, are vile and a cancer on our society.
I live in north Texas, and the situation here is pretty much on par with the article. Urgent Care & Emergency Room combos are here on every corner. It’s a lucrative business, so it makes sense that private equity firms are gobbling it up. But I think the more interesting problem here is one level up. Why are there so many of them? I see two possible reasons: 1. Anytime one of my family members gets sick, it’s rather…
$300 is your part of a regular doctor visit? Or the total bill? Do you have one of those high-deductible plans designed to discourage people from seeking any healthcare?
This is in fact not the purpose of those plans.
They try to actually be insurance (ie, in case of unexpected high expenses) rather than a combination of insurance plus pre-payment of typical expenses.
Sell everything in the US and move to a cheaper country like India. You will have free health care.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or maybe regulation is in fact a problem. In my country there is less regulation in healthcare services. I can walk into multiple private facilities in my town, get full blood panel with almost everything you can think of included (hormones, vitamins/mineral levels, liver markers etc) for around 100$. The results are going to be available online the same day (with the exception of those that require more lab time). T…
In the US you can have similar labs done at Labcorp or Quest. Prices are similar or slightly higher. MRIs are prescription only and higher priced. One main difference is that most labs here require a prescription, which means you need to go to a different provider just to get the piece of paper and pay them. Of course these providers are both massive chains. Not sure if either are PI owned.
It’s not all the tests I think, but many.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was covered by an employer plan, a lot of people seemed to gravitate towards high deductible plans because they were cheaper so long as you didn't consume a lot of healthcare. (Personally, I never did but a lot of people were adamant that you saved money that way.)
You really need to look at how the employer funds it but often those are cheaper no matter what.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The widespread need for medical insurance only exists because regulation has introduced many artificial inefficiencies within the health care sector that in turn severely distort the pricing of medical services and medical products. We'd see far more reasonable pricing, and much less need for something like medical insurance, without the regulations that artificially limit the supply of practitioners and clinics, tha…
The fact that healthcare is far cheaper in every European country that has universal healthcare suggests that you are wrong.
There’s a variety of weird examples of this mixed system:
>Poor people use ERs for every day healthcare, usually they get away with paying nothing, no insurance
>Working people with insurance pay more to enable this access for the destitute (or criminal) portion of the population
>Old people are sort of entitled to free healthcare. They get medicare, but if they want everything, they have to pay for “supplements.”
>Young people pay for the old people’s healthcare twice, on their payroll taxes and in the form of higher premiums. A 25 year old male should absolutely not have a $300/mo health premium. But he does, because his premium is paying for other’s care.
This is a system pretending to be private, but it’s actually just inefficiently public. It would be more efficient to pay for it using taxes, both income and sales taxes, rather than letting some groups—the poor and the elderly—off the hook arbitrarily.
Alternatively, abolish health insurance altogether—a notoriously inefficient and exploitative industry that does not suit the classic purpose of insurance (boat accidents and fires)—and see what happens. This is obviously a rather unpalatable option due to the chaos that would ensue, but it’s probably the best option.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was covered by an employer plan, a lot of people seemed to gravitate towards high deductible plans because they were cheaper so long as you didn't consume a lot of healthcare. (Personally, I never did but a lot of people were adamant that you saved money that way.)
I’ve long been a proponent of high deductible plans. The part you’re missing is that you also get the opportunity to contribute pre-tax money to a Health Savings Account, which is money that you get to keep (and even invest) over the long term. You can spend that HSA money on medical expenses but if you save it, it turns into another tax-advantaged savings account like your IRA and 401(k).
I had an interesting experience in the ER lately that caused me to do some research. The average ER wait time across DC was 5 hours and 29 minutes. That's across all hospitals.