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'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

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Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#101

Post by thallium205 »

nielsbot wrote: post #55
p0w3n3d wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guy from Poland here. What happened to ObamaCare? I thought you got finally a primary healthcare for all?

You comment sounds like snark but I understand if you don't know what Obamacare is. (And I'm not an expert so hopefully people will correct any mistakes) "Obamacare" was never healthcare for all. It is a GOP healthcare plan that heavily subsidizes private insurance. (Because free markets) And the current affordability crisis is the result of letting the government subsidies that help people pay for their Obamacare co…

All house and senate GOP members voted "no" on ACA. Obamacare is a lot of things, but a "GOP healthcare plan" isn't one of those things.

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#104

Post by deepthaw »

disdi wrote: post #96
deepthaw wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, but the people in europe aren't free(tm) /s

how exactly ?

it's sarcasm. a lot of arguments against social services like universal health care boil down to "well taxation is theft and therefore they're not actually free because they pay higher taxes"

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#105

Post by ETH_start »

The root cause:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Healthcare-administrator...

"Healthcare administrator's growth in the US. Healthcare administrator's growth by 3200% between 1975 and 2010 compared to 150% Physician growth according to Athena Health analysis of data from Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Center of Health Statistics, and the United States Census Bureau's Current Population survey in accordance to [26]. Admin: administration; HIPAA: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act; HITECH Act: Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act; DRGs: diagnosis-related group's."

The only class of medical services that has become more affordable over the last 50 years is cosmetic procedures and laser eye surgery:

https://healthblog.ncpathinktank.org/why-cant-the-market-for...

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#106

Post by klipklop »

nradov wrote: post #83
Workaccount2 wrote: post #52

Private equity should be banned from healthcare. What could go wrong putting a bunch of finance bros at the wheel of a "Pay this amount or suffer/die" industry?

PE is a convenient whipping boy but it's not the main problem. There has been so much consolidation of health systems and other provider organizations in some regions that they now effectively have monopolies, allowing them to jack up prices. The effect is largely the same whether the owner is a PE firm or a non-profit foundation. In order to counteract that we would need much more vigorous antitrust enforcement, whi…

Isn’t it fair to argue that it’s PE doing all this consolidation?

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#107

Post by russdill »

p0w3n3d wrote: post #60

I have some questions but I don't want to offend anybody. Aren't there any methods to contract the healthcare to lower the prices down? I heard that in UK they have some requirements that the prices must not go higher than... For a given type of service. Also I read a lot of articles that giving a tablet to a hospitalised person costs 20-50 bucks and people are generally running away from ambulances to not pay

It's a twisty maze of passages, all alike as they say. They have entire classes of certifications for understanding how medical and insurance billing works in this country.

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#108

Post by protocolture »

I find the US healthcare "system" to be an interesting topic. More nuanced than people think. It honestly seems like the worst way to run anything. Like I honestly cant see who its for, other than maybe US Corporations on the list of approved medical vendors. Like, putting on my "Lives in a free(ish) healthcare country" hat, it looks bonkers from that angle. But even from a more libertarian mode, the whole thing looks daft from that angle too.

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#109

Post by harmmonica »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #26

Mine has tripled, but last year, I was actually getting some govt help. Not this year. I am fortunate to be able to afford it, but it’s just less than my mortgage. This month is when all hell breaks loose, because people will get their first invoice at the new rate. They already know how much, but seeing it in the form of a demand, will drive it home. Obamacare is like the NHS, in the UK. Everyone likes to bitch abou…

The equally insidious thing is that when they get hit with the new premium anyone who took better coverage, like a silver plan for the ACA, will likely be "forced" to downgrade to a lower (bronze) plan, which means that when they actually get services their costs will further skyrocket (higher deductibles and out of pockets).

Talking about all hell breaking loose... Marjorie Taylor Greene announces her resignation specifically because of rising health care costs (yeah, I'm cynical,there's maybe more to it). Mamdani gets elected on a platform that's essentially "shit costs too much." Maybe folks on both sides are starting to wake up. A guy can dream...

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#110

Post by dboreham »

cubefox wrote: post #54

It should be mentioned that the US has very high wages, and even when subtracting substantial health care insurance cost, the income likely remains higher than what people earn in most other countries.

Reading this sent me down a bit of an OECD data rabbit hole. They seem to agree. However once you read the fine print I'm not so sure. Many things are much more costly in the US (education, travel, food, vehicles, houses...) and the OECD data seems to not control for that. Also my personal experience is there are a large number of very poor people in the USA. Seems like more than in Western Europe for example.
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