151–160 of 369 posts
What a shame they can't see outsides themselves and realize they're only an inch away from financial ruin.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what is the solution? More than 42% went all in with the constraint being their personal assets. If that constraint was lifted, then what would the next constraint be? Obviously the additional assets would come from other people, and probably not voluntarily (which is a different issue), but what would be the limiting factor then? Also, I assume the new pool of assets would be available not just to the 42% that we…
How about if we have a single entity who pays doctors and hospitals fair and reasonable rates, we fire hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats we don't need, and we fund it all out of general revenues, saving roughly 2 trillion dollars per year, while at the same time improving life expectancy and other health outcomes?
This is unfortunate, but what do you want to do, have the government pay for it? Maybe there are a lot of people with cancer who will get better and live for X number of years. But many people are going to die in a year or two and we would just end up spending millions of dollars on them, essentially wasting the government's money. How much money would you spend to increase someone's life by a minute, an hour, a day,…
> The solution isn't free healthcare for everyone.
I mean....
It's such an absurd expense that I wonder if I get diagnosed with cancer, I would just deny treatment, accept death, and hand my assets to loved ones. Not sure if anyone else thinks the same way.
More than 42% of 9.5M people with cancer drained life's assets within 2 years in the US .
Yes, but bankruptcy due to health reasons is actually quite common in Canada as well. Why? If you’re sick enough you can’t work or pay your bills so you go bankrupt. It’s not just healthcare costs. Survey research commissioned by the Canadian government found that despite having a government-run health system, medical reasons (including uninsured expenses), were cited as the primary cause of bankruptcy by approximate…
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Paid-sick-days-and-sick-...
My mother was on sick leave for many months for breast cancer and the illness had a relatively small impact in terms of family finances.
This makes me so angry at doctors.
I understand the frustration, but I think the anger should be directed at inefficiencies in the market. You can examine UPMC's Charge Description Master File for their different hospitals, and the cost for Y-90 Sirsphere is $222406.00 in Pittsburgh and $56687.00 in Erie ($150,000 and 2 hours drive difference). Not bashing UPMC, but this probably applies to hospitals around the country. These hospitals have huge costs…
And you know that the charge master prices are pretty much phantasy and nobody knows what the insurance rates are. They should have to open up all pricing. There should be no hidden negotiated prices and all historical prices should be published.
"But none of these is her most gnawing, ever present concern. That would be the convoluted medical bills that fill multiple binders, depleted savings accounts that destroy early retirement plans and so, so many phone calls with insurers and medical providers." Is it like this in other OECD countries? I ask because I'm told that we in America have "the best health care system in the world."
Some people are genuinely concerned than touching the former (administrative side) will result in lowering the level of the latter (quality/availability of care, drugs, etc.). That it's the inherent high cost of the current US system that somehow makes it so good in terms of availability/quality of care. I disagree, but can somehow understand the line of thought.
EDIT: I have no idea to what extent care is really better in the US than elsewhere, but know first hand of someone who had to pay for interferon out of pocket in Japan because it was not yet covered at that time. It's not rare for the newest US drugs to take many years to cross the Pacific ocean...
This is a 2019 article covering a study that covers 2000 to 2012 and doesn't mention the Affordable Care Act signed into law in 2010. Insurance landscape has changed quite a bit in the USA since ACA, which makes this not very interesting. What I would be interested in is repeating the study now and comparing results.
I would expect the results to be no different - the article was talking about people who already have insurance. I've been through the incredible medical-bill maze that results from cancer treatment since then; it's just the same. The ACA was explicitly designed to perpetuate the current insurance system, why would you expect the situation to have improved?
The removal of lifetime benefits, ability to deny pre-existing conditions, and setting a maximum range between the lowest premium that can be offered and highest premium that can be offered greatly improved access to health insurance benefits for everyone. At the expense of making it more expensive for the young and healthy, but obviously someone has to pay, and we as a nation don't want it to be via taxes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Malpractice insurance takes a surprising % of doctor's income. Delivering babies is particularly expensive. It reached the point that the doctor that delivered my babies no longer carries malpractice insurance.
Did he proactively disclose that to you or did it just come up in conversation? Attorneys in many states aren't required to have malpractice insurance but must disclose to clients if their malpractice insurance doesn't meet some minimum standard. Edit to add that I also suspect the health insurance companies are a big part of driving up the malpractice insurance costs. For example, if there's some sort of error in a…
When my daughter had her babies I recommended my doctor who was pretty young when she delivered my babies. In fact - we were both pregnant together. She was a couple of months behind me. My doctor notified up front that she did not have malpractice insurance.
In fact the insurance situation is pretty hard on working mothers. I know 2 doctors who gave up medicine when they had their children. They wanted to work part time and the insurance structure does not support part time work.
A generation earlier - my father was a family practitioner who gave up delivering babies because the insurance was so high. He had to specialize in internal medicine. That is why we no longer have family practitioners in the US.