> hospital price transparency, Wasn't this already put in place by the previous administration?
yes... One of the good things Trump did
Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?
201–210 of 595 posts
Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?
#202My health insurance is buying hospital company stocks.
Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?
#203It's not actually real. The lobbying firm behind most of the fact sheet is made up of people on the boards of different tech firms.
This is a very serious accusation, but I can't find any substance to it, and it doesn't make much sense. What tech firm have lobbyists on their board?
Presumably you're talking about this fact sheet?
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
If a lobbying firm is behind official White House communications, and not WH-employed staff, that alone would be a serious allegation. But to say that tech is behind this is even worse.
Where is the evidence?
Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course it was, also see “value based care”. It’s all bullshit. Hospitals have zero incentive to be transparent, and all the incentives to be opaque. So long as you’re a non-Medicare/Medicaid patient you’ll continue to suffer. The American healthcare system is completely fucked (there’s no better word).
Is it fscked for physicians and various healthcare professionals (e.g., paid higher wages than other countries with different systems). Is it also fscked for wealthy patients who do not really care about costs.
> Is it fscked for physicians and various healthcare professionals
It's an underappreciated point. The US healthcare system is one of the largest wealth transfer systems ever invented. It's a heavily protected cartel that plunders wealth from the top 2/3 and lines the pockets of a few million employees in the system.
There is an excess cost bounty of $1.2 trillion (or more) being plundered and redistributed every year to the healthcare cartel.
There are millions of people working artificially high paying jobs in the healthcare cartel in the US courtesy of the hyper inflated costs in the system. From nurses to doctors to pharma sales reps to scientists to management and everything inbetween.
Nobody ever talks about the need to slash the pay of nurses & doctors though, it's far too unpopular of a subject, it's downright taboo. Just a notch below slashing the pay of teachers. They'd all go on strike tomorrow morning if a serious attempt were made to bring their pay in-line with other developed nations.
The US has to remove a minimum of $1.2 trillion in cost from its healthcare system (which would produce an end cost structure still far above that of eg Britain). Only about 10-15% of that can come from slashing costs out of the pharma drug price side. The bulk of it has to come out of inflated salaries of millions of workers in healthcare across the board.
When politicians talk about universal healthcare in the US, they always, without exception, go far out of their way to dodge this epic scale problem of inflated salaries in healthcare and of where to find $1.2 trillion in costs to slash (they primarily focus on high drug prices as a matter of political convenience; that segment by itself won't remotely cut it though). This is why every time a state decides it's going to look at doing universal healthcare, it immediately runs away after the cost study is completed, it's impossible until you remove a dramatic amount of cost from the system. Now someone go tell all the nurses and doctors in California they get to make 25%-35% less money (good luck).
Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
A couple years past, def under Obama, I went in for a retina exam. They absolutely could not tell me the price for the appointment. "It depends on services rendered" - "what if it is a standard appointment with no extra services, how much (ball park) should I expect? $50? $500? $5k?" - "I couldn't tell you, I can't imagine that high." There is no price transparency. Sure would like it since I have a high deductible p…
Price transparency plus high deductible plans would drive the cost of health insurance down. Health insurance is supposed to cover you for catastrophic health issues that were previously unknown. For some reason it changed to also cover all your recurring or minor illnesses.
I'm not so sure. There's a lot of waste in all of our health care system, and many areas are served by few care providers. Transparency on prices without effective competition won't change much.
Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
A couple years past, def under Obama, I went in for a retina exam. They absolutely could not tell me the price for the appointment. "It depends on services rendered" - "what if it is a standard appointment with no extra services, how much (ball park) should I expect? $50? $500? $5k?" - "I couldn't tell you, I can't imagine that high." There is no price transparency. Sure would like it since I have a high deductible p…
Price transparency plus high deductible plans would drive the cost of health insurance down. Health insurance is supposed to cover you for catastrophic health issues that were previously unknown. For some reason it changed to also cover all your recurring or minor illnesses.
Part of that is because it’s far cheaper to catch (say) cancer at an early stage and treat it than it is to catch it at stage 3 or 4 and spend potentially millions on a possibly preventable catastrophe.
There is fairly strong evidence that if the cost of routine preventative care isn’t paid by insurance, quite a lot of people opt to skip it because they can’t afford it, leading to worse outcomes.
Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it fscked for physicians and various healthcare professionals (e.g., paid higher wages than other countries with different systems). Is it also fscked for wealthy patients who do not really care about costs.
> Is it fscked for physicians and various healthcare professionals It's an underappreciated point. The US healthcare system is one of the largest wealth transfer systems ever invented. It's a heavily protected cartel that plunders wealth from the top 2/3 and lines the pockets of a few million employees in the system. There is an excess cost bounty of $1.2 trillion (or more) being plundered and redistributed every yea…
About 50% of that $1.2 trillion is in unnecessary admin.
Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
A couple years past, def under Obama, I went in for a retina exam. They absolutely could not tell me the price for the appointment. "It depends on services rendered" - "what if it is a standard appointment with no extra services, how much (ball park) should I expect? $50? $500? $5k?" - "I couldn't tell you, I can't imagine that high." There is no price transparency. Sure would like it since I have a high deductible p…
Price transparency plus high deductible plans would drive the cost of health insurance down. Health insurance is supposed to cover you for catastrophic health issues that were previously unknown. For some reason it changed to also cover all your recurring or minor illnesses.
I agree with your take. I work in the industry. The for some reason has partly to do with the U.S. tying insurance to your employer and not charging taxes. It makes sense to offer as much as possible pretax.
Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it fscked for physicians and various healthcare professionals (e.g., paid higher wages than other countries with different systems). Is it also fscked for wealthy patients who do not really care about costs.
> Is it fscked for physicians and various healthcare professionals It's an underappreciated point. The US healthcare system is one of the largest wealth transfer systems ever invented. It's a heavily protected cartel that plunders wealth from the top 2/3 and lines the pockets of a few million employees in the system. There is an excess cost bounty of $1.2 trillion (or more) being plundered and redistributed every yea…
Do you have some sources where I can read up more on this? I have always believed that the cost of front line worker salaries (Doctors/Nurses) was a relatively small % of the total cost of healthcare.
Studies like this [1] led me to believe that massive rises in administration costs and inefficiencies due to insurance structure are bigger culprits than doctor/nurse salaries. But I am admittedly not very well informed in this area.
Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it fscked for physicians and various healthcare professionals (e.g., paid higher wages than other countries with different systems). Is it also fscked for wealthy patients who do not really care about costs.
> Is it fscked for physicians and various healthcare professionals It's an underappreciated point. The US healthcare system is one of the largest wealth transfer systems ever invented. It's a heavily protected cartel that plunders wealth from the top 2/3 and lines the pockets of a few million employees in the system. There is an excess cost bounty of $1.2 trillion (or more) being plundered and redistributed every yea…
Do you have an example of a cost study? I’m curious, but don’t know how to find one.