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This is how you healthcare: American Death in London

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Re: This is how you healthcare: American Death in London

#121

Post by rmc »

rdouble wrote: post #7
oneandoneis2 wrote: post #6

I was in America, in LA, a few years back (I'm British), when the whole Obamacare thing was being debated everywhere. The one thing I noticed, and it was a rule that didn't have a single exception, was that everyone I talked to could give at least one example of a time when either they or somebody they personally knew had been faced with a ruinous bill for healthcare. People who'd been bankrupted, people who'd fled t…

The system does bankrupt people, but it doesn't refuse to treat people. That is why people go bankrupt - the hospital has to treat everyone, then hands them an immense bill.

"Sure we'll treat you, but it'll bankrupt you". is, essentially, "refusal" by another name.

Re: This is how you healthcare: American Death in London

#122

Post by redblacktree »

elemeno wrote: post #106
redblacktree wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is private insurance still available if I want more exotic options? Sounds like the best of both worlds to me.

Yup. You can happily pay for private insurance, or pay out of pocket for private care, and you'll be able to get all the drugs that the NHS thinks are too expensive for the benefits they bring, or surgical procedures that are considered experimental.

So why all the hate for socialized medicine? If the rich(er) folks want to have access to the most exotic care, they can still have it. Meanwhile, people who can't afford basic care today will get it. Come on, America.

Re: This is how you healthcare: American Death in London

#123

Post by ntrepid8 »

I enjoyed reading this article and I think the choice about how healthcare should be delivered in the U.S. boils down to how we as a society want to spend our (limited) resources. Part of the reason that we spend more in the U.S. than in the E.U. is because in many cases we go to greater lengths to extend someone's life.

I'm not sure that culturally people are willing to accept the idea that we aren't going to do "everything we can" for someone because it isn't worth it to society (the payer). In the case described here, we might have implanted an electronic device to resynchronize the patient's heart and prevent the CHF from trashing the rest of his organs for a few more months (or years) at the cost of $200k.

Are we at a place where people in the U.S. will accept not doing that that?

I think that a single payer with a base level of free care is the right thing for society to do, but the possibility of making private insurance illegal (as it is in some places and some groups in the U.S. are advocating for) is terrifying to me.

The affordable care act basically ensures that we will arrive at a single payer system sooner or later, but how do we change our culture to be more accepting of our own mortality and the limitations placed on extreme measures to extend life?

Re: This is how you healthcare: American Death in London

#124

Post by ntrepid8 »

I enjoyed reading this article and I think the choice about how healthcare should be delivered in the U.S. boils down to how we as a society want to spend our (limited) resources. Part of the reason that we spend more in the U.S. than in the E.U. is because in many cases we go to greater lengths to extend someone's life.

I'm not sure that culturally people are willing to accept the idea that we aren't going to do "everything we can" for someone because it isn't worth it to society (the payer). In the case described here, we might have implanted an electronic device to resynchronize the patient's heart and prevent the CHF from trashing the rest of his organs for a few more months (or years) at the cost of $200k.

Are we at a place where people in the U.S. will accept not doing that that?

I think that a single payer with a base level of free care is the right thing for society to do, but the possibility of making private insurance illegal (as it is in some places and some groups in the U.S. are advocating for) is terrifying to me.

The affordable care act basically ensures that we will arrive at a single payer system sooner or later, but how do we change our culture to be more accepting of our own mortality and the limitations placed on extreme measures to extend life?

Re: This is how you healthcare: American Death in London

#125

Post by elptacek »

VLM wrote: post #49
danso wrote: post #8

Some excerpts: He was a charming, damaged, charismatic, fiercely intelligent, dissolute individual, who lived entirely on his own terms. As a professional gambler, it is unlikely he paid much if any tax in 37 years. He had no will, no funeral plan. He never did fill out the forms necessary to vote in the last election, or the one before that, as I discovered. He just hated forms. I could sympathise. Had he stayed in…

"But the reason why it doesn't happen is because of cost" The most peculiar part of the whole situation is service cost and individual personal wealth is never an issue WRT national military "defense" or police coverage or fire department coverage or admission into a church or the (admittedly failed) K12 education system or EPA enforcement or OSHA enforcement or ... thus the real question is why cost should be a conc…

Note that there are a few townships that provide emergency services free to residents for the first /n/ visits per year, after which some fees are assessed. If you are not a resident, you may receive a bill if that area's emergency services dispenses care or transports you to a hospital.

Re: This is how you healthcare: American Death in London

#126

Post by jimbokun »

flexie wrote: post #93
carsongross wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could you possibly know?

http://epianalysis.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/usversuseurope/

I can't resist pasting this verbatim:

"This leaves the last theory: do we pay higher prices for the same care? Among prescription drug costs, we pay far more than any other country, at least 20% more than Canada and over 60% more than New Zealand. For the same MRI’s and CT scans, we also pay more: $1,080 is the commercial average cost for an MRI in the U.S. as compared to $599 in Germany; at CT of the head costs $510 on average in the U.S. versus $272 in Germany. For a hip replacement, we again pay the most: $1,634 among public payers and $3,996 among private payers, versus $1,046 and $1,943 respectively in Australia. And physicians’ incomes are the highest: $187,000 on average among primary care doctors in the U.S. versus $93,000 in Australia; and $442,000 among orthopedic surgeons in the U.S. versus $154,000 in France."

Here in the U.S. we pay roughly double FOR THE EXACT SAME PROCEDURES AND SERVICES.

And, probably not coincidentally, doctors make roughly twice as much here as other countries.

It seems we keep going round and round trying to attribute the differences between the U.S. and other systems to some philosophical differences, but the bottom line is we are simple being price gouged by an entire industry.

Re: This is how you healthcare: American Death in London

#127

Post by abrown28 »

redblacktree wrote: post #122
elemeno wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. You can happily pay for private insurance, or pay out of pocket for private care, and you'll be able to get all the drugs that the NHS thinks are too expensive for the benefits they bring, or surgical procedures that are considered experimental.

So why all the hate for socialized medicine? If the rich(er) folks want to have access to the most exotic care, they can still have it. Meanwhile, people who can't afford basic care today will get it. Come on, America.

Because it involves force to implement and removes my control. At least that's my reason for hating socialized anything.
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