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Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

ysph.yale.edu

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Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

#751

Post by s1artibartfast »

magicalist wrote: post #659
s1artibartfast wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way to begin is look for studies on wait times or procedures of a given type per capita.

Like this one: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/article-abstrac... > Among patients undergoing cancer surgery, waiting times to initiation of first-course therapy have steadily increased since 2012, particularly at high-volume academic centers and among patients referred for definitive care. With continued consolidation and expansion of health systems, system-level strategies are urgently needed to monito…

How does that compare to other countries? Also seems like government insurance was the worst risk factor.

Why would I want to trade my top tier private insurance for that?

Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

#752

Post by runako »

bonsai_spool wrote: post #708
jtbayly wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a high deductible insurance plan, not a monthly subscription to all your healthcare needs. Why would you call that a “scam”? And for the record, it was not as high a deductible as most “silver” plans on the exchange currently.

> It was a high deductible insurance plan Why do you believe that the ACA would have wanted such plans cancelled? There's a very straightforward public health reason that's reminiscent of why states require drivers to have car insurance. > And for the record, it was not as high a deductible as most “silver” plans on the exchange currently. The plan would have been in effective over 18 years ago. Does your internet pl…

> The plan would have been in effective over 18 years ago

This is such an important point. There's been ~40% of cumulative inflation over that period.

Also, anyone who was already buying insurance for years before the ACA knew the price has always gone up every year, often by double-digit percentages. Simple compounding plus the fact that insurance is always more expensive for people 18 years older are confusing a lot of people in this discussion.

Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

#753

Post by lkbm »

preg_match wrote: post #682
loeg wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not a single soul on earth thinks single payer healthcare is free. 8 billion people, not one of them thinks it. 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.

No, they’re not false, you’re just misunderstanding. When people say “free” healthcare they do not literally mean all healthcare is zero dollars. They don’t mean nurses earn a wage of 0 dollars an hour. No, they mean free at time of service, which they are. Don’t believe me? Great, then ask them, without doing word gymnastics to try to trick them. Should medical equipment cost 0 dollars to produce? Should doctors not…

> No, they mean free at time of service, which they are.

I don't think that's true France, Norway, New Zealand, or Switzerland. (And that's just developed nations. The GP's claim was every country other than the US.)

Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

#754

Post by frmersdog »

bentt wrote: post #724

There are a lot of people making a lot of money on the inefficiencies of the US system. They won’t give up their revenue streams without a fight, and they are filthy rich on the backs of sick people. You better believe they will play dirty.

If someone shoots some more CEOs, they'll have a change of heart.

(A lot of people are going to be very mad at me about this comment, without having the awareness to understand that this is the inevitable conclusion to, "You wanna play rough, ah?!"ing people's access to life-saving treatment. Please grok that we can preclude any more assassinations by cutting profits and letting people get the care they need.)

Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

#755

Post by cwmoore »

californical wrote: post #696
BobbyJo wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could this be because US gov healthcare spending takes place mostly via Medicare, which is specifically for people 65+?

The spending per capita, unless I’m mistaken, is just “per person in the country” not “per person insured by the government”. That means that even though government insurance in the US only covers a relatively small percent of the population, we pay more than other countries that cover the whole population.

Close to the same percent that doesn’t have employer coverage, they’re saying, those too old or ill to work fulltime.

I say convert SSA to UBI, set a floor, and let the price of things find a new level with more people in the marketplace:

Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

#756

Post by testing22321 »

trollbridge wrote: post #731
testing22321 wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be your experience, and I’m sorry to hear it, but that is not the universal experience. I’m in the hospital right now. My two year old had her tonsils and adenoids out this morning. Regular Dr visit lead to an X-ray on the same day, specialist appointment 3 weeks later, surgery 2 months later (would have been one month, but we pushed it back because timing and life). Just talking about how my wife is coming…

In America, anyone who earns $20k a year with with a 2 year old is going to get free medical care, too. I have several kids and my medical care is free up until we make about $55,000 per year. If we had no jobs, same thing. A close relative of mine (who is single) also had cancer and had 100% of it paid for. Transportation costs are also paid for, although we never needed overnight accommodation so far. My prior expe…

Why are 27 million Americans without healthcare, are why is medical bankruptcy so common?

A massive percentage of the population don’t have and/or can’t afford healthcare.

By definition, that is not a good system.

Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

#757

Post by Supermancho »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #632
MrSkelter wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthcare reform isn’t actually hard. Every advanced country has done it bar the United States. In every case costs have gone down and outcomes have improved. You always build on what you have because you can’t pause healthcare for very obvious reasons. Hence a lot of different systems all with the same aim. Controlled costs and universal coverage. The idea the US is somehow different and cannot make the change is t…

>In every case costs have gone down and outcomes have improved. this isn't really true though, if you look at survival rates of many diseases.

Can you give any examples?

Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

#758

Post by reverius42 »

chimeracoder wrote: post #750
shdh wrote: post #736

Legislate transparent pricing for all medications and procedures first. Paying 40 dollars for lozenges in the ER is insane. Right now the system has an opaque pricing structure which makes no sense. Force hospitals to expose API's with transparent pricing.

> Force hospitals to expose API's with transparent pricing. Unless you're uninsured (which is a whole separate clusterfuck), the hospitals aren't the ones who decide how much you pay for any service - the insurance companies are. The sticker price that hospitals charge is almost meaningless and is intentionally high because it's used as the starting point for negotiations, which always bring the price down (never up)…

It should be illegal to charge different prices for the same thing to different customers.

Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

#759

Post by opo »

Detrytus wrote: post #732
joering2 wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is a great example. What a horrible human... https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article...

This is a top-level example but you do not have to look at the top, really. The whole private insurance system is a scam at every level. I mean: I immigrated to US couple years ago, and I can tell you that any hospital visit, or a diagnostics, such as CT scan or ultrasound are 15-20x more expensive here than in my home country (which is in the EU). Funny thing is: if you tell the hospital that you do not have an insu…

>...Funny thing is: if you tell the hospital that you do not have an insurance they will charge you a price that actually sounds reasonable, say $700 for a CT scan

That has not been my experience. Insurance negotiates lower rates and without insurance, the full fare price suggested price has always been higher.

Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

#760

Post by cwmoore »

twoodfin wrote: post #540
chermi wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It almost seems like obscurity is the goal with the current system. Basically, job security (for admin, insurance) via obfuscation.

It’s more like a politically palatable Rube Goldberg machine for transferring costs to those (well-insured through their jobs, the Federal government, rich supporting institutions and donors) able to pay.

Nice comment, and true enough, but $37 aspirin and similar is a criminal fraud, and so are the laws not treating it for the coercive robbery it is.
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