Earlier quoted context omitted.
We want consumers to consider cost when evaluating what services to buy, though. That's a feature. The medical emergency debt statistic is just the usual thing of people not really understanding how medical insurance works.
When I’m having a heart attack, or when I’m in anaphylactic shock - you know, some of the most expensive procedures that happen - I’ll make sure to confirm the ambulance is in network, the hospital, the specific first ER doctor, the specialist, the surgeon, the lab, the lab techs, the anesthesiologists and so on, while I’m either unconscious or actively dying.
Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
581–590 of 1001 posts
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#582Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US already has a national health insurance network that pays the vast majority of all providers, and as far as I know it is widely popular and covers everyone legally present in the US for a portion of their life, Medicare. Old people experience just about every ailment young people do, we can just get rid of the age restriction on Medicare, it's already fully integrated with our medical system. No need to copy-p…
Medicare also isn't something that you can copy paste from covering only old people to everyone. For one, margins from Medicare patients are much lower and often negative for hospitals, and that money has to come from somewhere. Medicare doesn't cover a lot of drugs that people are already used to their private insurance covering like GLP1s for weight loss. Of course, a transition from point a to point B is possible,…
And I do know that you mentioned a real material reason why this isn't pushed harder by either political party despite the nearly inevitable massive savings if we pull it off. Causing an upheaval in the job market by removing a bunch of unnecessary admin work has real short-term impacts that will be hard for any US political party to weather well. That being said, I do think there are very real paths to achieving this and rhetoric about needing to copy-paste big parts from other countries distracts from how achievable it is. 90% of the work is already there with Medicare, and expanding the list of covered drugs and having a price negotiation with hospitals to make Medicare a good customer rather than a burden in some cases is definitely possible with some political will. A public option if it had been included in the ACA would have likely moved us a lot closer to universal coverage, especially if the mandate was still enforced, and likely would have spurred some of these necessary discussions.
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#583Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this one might not be true anymore. Canada has 432 machines as of ~2023 (340 in 2015) and MA is on the order of ~300 (can't find exact figures). It's still a lot lower per capita (10.8 per million vs 42 per million).
So the new comparison is Canada and Illinois. I can remember that! :) (Thanks for catching this! I had no idea.) This is super weird , isn't it? Some of it is obviously overprescription on the US side, but also: Canada could just get more machines.
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#584Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US' healthcare model is not unique, and almost no countries have zero-cost-to-consumer healthcare systems (and none of them are free -- they're just paid by taxpayers instead of consumers). "Free" healthcare is the exception rather than some kind of international norm you incorrectly make it out to be. The first step to reforming US healthcare is actually understanding it, and understanding some international des…
Not a single soul on earth thinks single payer healthcare is free. 8 billion people, not one of them thinks it. They mean “free to the consumer at time of service”, which it is. Nobody is lying, everyone agrees, it’s just you who doesn’t understand.
You are incredibly optimistic about a large swath of the population's understanding, unfortunately.
> Nobody is lying
There are plenty of people in this discussion making statements of fact that are false. Call it whatever you want.
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#585Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not buying any of this when the world is now full of dark patterns¹ and the ultimate result is that people in charge keep getting richer, faster. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting
many hospitals are run by non-profits or the government (e.g. universities)
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#586Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#587Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US' healthcare model is not unique, and almost no countries have zero-cost-to-consumer healthcare systems (and none of them are free -- they're just paid by taxpayers instead of consumers). "Free" healthcare is the exception rather than some kind of international norm you incorrectly make it out to be. The first step to reforming US healthcare is actually understanding it, and understanding some international des…
Not a single soul on earth thinks single payer healthcare is free. 8 billion people, not one of them thinks it. They mean “free to the consumer at time of service”, which it is. Nobody is lying, everyone agrees, it’s just you who doesn’t understand.
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#588Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#589I'd like to believe this, but the study makes a bunch of really hasty assumptions. The authors derive the $1T number from $1.3T in total cost savings and $304B in incremental spend (incremental spend is due to insuring more people). The $1.3T in cost savings come from five big buckets: lower pharmaceutical prices, Medicare-level payments to providers, reduced administrative overhead, less fraudulent billing, and fewe…
> Hospitals have an operating margin of 2-5% Very curious where this comes from and how accurate it is. For example the $37 a provider charges for an Aspirin seems like more than 2-5% margin.
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#590I'd like to believe this, but the study makes a bunch of really hasty assumptions. The authors derive the $1T number from $1.3T in total cost savings and $304B in incremental spend (incremental spend is due to insuring more people). The $1.3T in cost savings come from five big buckets: lower pharmaceutical prices, Medicare-level payments to providers, reduced administrative overhead, less fraudulent billing, and fewe…