From outside of the US, it baffles me ( and I'm sure others ) why the US doesn't embrace governement based healthcare. We pay the same kinds of tax rates etc and don't have to pay for health insurance on top of that(though you can get extra health insurance for pretty cheap if you want). It's kind of like governement education which the US does pay for up to a certain point. Not only is it worth educating your popula…
There is a rising groundswell of support for government based healthcare recently:
Why don't they compete now or why can't you even get a price upfront from them? EDIT: I am responding to a comment that the AMA is the problem. Maybe the AMA is a problem but it has nothing to do with hospitals not competing over prices.
Because price negotiations aren’t disclosed and are privy between hospitals and insurance provusers. The real crux is that point, the patient is removed from pricing and so the whole market becomes distorted. It’s like going to a store without price tags and complaining that your bill is much higher than you expected.
"t’s like going to a store without price tags and complaining that your bill is much higher than you expected."
It's more like only having stores without price tags and then when you overpay people telling you that you should have shopped around for a good price.
The insurance company is basically saying, you should still choose the in-network provider even if you are unconscious or don't have a choice or we'll fuck you financially. I've had this happen to me, appealed, and after many months, actually won. In my case I was unconscious and the ambulance and hospital were out of network. I was lucky the hospital was willing to wait over a year and not send it to collections. It…
> The insurance company is basically saying, you should still choose the in-network provider even if you are unconscious or don't have a choice or we'll fuck you financially. Actually, they are saying if you choose to cut premium costs by selecting a narrow provider network, well, there's a reason why the premium costs are low. > Why the fuck isn't there a law against this kind of shit? Because Republicans actively o…
Your first point is simply not true. There is no plan that covers every ER and every hospital. Even on the top plans, there are in-network and out of network providers. So once again, we're back to making decisions while incapacitated or unconscious. No matter how carefully you chose your plan and how much you pay, you're still fucked. Not to mention that almost everyone is stuck with the plans their employers choose. Even the platinum level ACA plans, however, are like this. That's what I'm talking about above, BTW, as well as equivalent plans provided by corporations. It's simply impossible to get a plan that covers everything and therefore prevents you from going bankrupt in all situations.
You mean, like Medicare? OK, it's not with every provider, just anyone who wants to be a provider.
I should have written one health insurance company instead of one organization. Obviously it doesn't make sense to compare a health insurance company that has to abide by 50 different state insurance regulators to the US government.
Then they shouldn't be allowed to conduct business. Of course I expect them to cover all emergencies period. How they do that, I don't really care. If it were up to me, I'd ban these monstrous leeches from society altogether and only allow them to offer supplemental plans. They clearly can't do their own job so they should be replaced by a program like Medicare or Medicaid that can do the job. Would you accept a car insurance policy that only covers some accidents? That's beyond ridiculous.
Here's the deal. Insurance is a simple concept. Take house fires. They are fairly rare, but they do happen. We could all just save up enough money to cover a house fire ourselves, or, since we know that house fires are rare, we can pool our money together as friends and neighbors and when one of us in that pool gets unlucky and has their house burn down, it can be covered by insurance. A lot of us pay a little money…
Read the article.
The man had insurance, it didn't pay out. Or more accurately, the hospital intentionally overwhelmed the insurance company's willingness to pay.
I can't think of the right analogy for house fire insurance. Because you can take your payout after the fire, and either rebuild or use it to buy another house. There's never a situation where you have house fire insurance, and end up paying MORE when your house burns down.
> Someone needs to pay for it Or you could pay less for it. There are many studies that show how the US system has incredibly high overhead that simply isn't needed. Just an example: in the US, a primary care physician usually has a nurse and somebody who handles paperwork, insurance BS, and what not. Most European countries simply don't have this, mostly because there is no insurance BS to deal with. There is insura…
Once again, US share of taxes in GDP is 26%. Denmark: 50.8, Sweden 49.8, Germany 44.5, France 47.9, UK 34.4. So weighted by GDP it does cost quite a bit.
Why are you quoting figures for the entire tax take in a discussion about healthcare? To give you some perspective, the healthcare-only figures for those countries are US: 16.8%, Denmark: 10.3%, Sweden: 11%, Germany: 11.2%, France: 11.1% and UK: 9.9%. Data here:
Once again, US share of taxes in GDP is 26%. Denmark: 50.8, Sweden 49.8, Germany 44.5, France 47.9, UK 34.4. So weighted by GDP it does cost quite a bit.
Why are you quoting figures for the entire tax take in a discussion about healthcare? To give you some perspective, the healthcare-only figures for those countries are US: 16.8%, Denmark: 10.3%, Sweden: 11%, Germany: 11.2%, France: 11.1% and UK: 9.9%. Data here: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS?year_...
Because OP wanted to "switch" to European socialized insurance, without also "switching" to their levels of incomes and taxes as well. Of course their cost of labor is lower: they socialize a bunch of costs that would otherwise need to be recouped through the earnings of doctors, nurses, administrative personnel, etc. On top of that they get US drugs for a fraction of the cost, and don’t do any serious pharma research (because there’s quite literally no money in it, given the cost of drugs). It’s not a valid comparison. My point wasn't that US healthcare is not expensive, anyone with any brain at all can tell that it is. It was that you can't pick and choose, and on balance, even with the more expensive healthcare, the US is a "better deal" for the vast majority of people who comment on this site.
Retail cost for Lactated Ringer's solution, injectable (basic saline fluid for IV) was over $40/liter in qty 12 liters about 3 years ago. I can imagine it has gone up since then. The use of the health care system to extract every single excess dollar from the middle class extends to many, many layers of the supply and service chain. It may be that the saline was "merely" marked up by a factor of 2x.
Seems like the problem is broadly in the medical sector (including pharmacological). There is 0 reasons why it would cost over $1. Maybe $2. $40 is still way ridiculous. I mean in a competitive market.
The problem is there will never be a truly competitive market in most health care products and services. Necessary regulation creates too many barriers to entry and competition, and the ultimate consumer has very little demand flexibility or even choice of provider.
What is needed is a monopsony buyer who can negotiate in this arena on a more even footing. In other words, single-payer.