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The Amish health care system

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Re: The Amish health care system

#31

Post by thebean11 »

_fq4v wrote: post #2

I thought the most interesting part was the commentary on non-Amish care in the past > I asked my literal grandmother, a 95 year old former nurse, how health care worked in her day. She said it just wasn’t a problem. Hospitals were supported by wealthy philanthropists and religious organizations. Poor people got treated for free. Middle class people paid as much as they could afford, which was often the whole bill, b…

We still have the rampant inequality today. I believe NYU Langone let's people pay a large yearly sum for access to a special phone number and "skipping the line" on appointments.

Re: The Amish health care system

#32

Post by daenz »

GuiA wrote: post #21
daenz wrote: post #14

>How do the Amish keep costs so low? R&D (plus a few other sources) identify some key strategies. >...the Amish are honorable customers. This separates them from insurance companies, who are constantly trying to scam providers however they can. Much of the increase in health care costs is “administrative expenses”, and much of these administrative expenses is hiring an army of lawyers, clerks, and billing professiona…

> Imagine how many social problems would disappear if people had more integrity and stronger morals. Literally every aspect of life would improve. Granted, everyone in the world is suddenly moral and of utmost integrity and everyone gets used to this new reality. The economic upside in lying/cheating is now so high that a few minutes later the world is back to exactly what it was, except for the first few persons to…

>Granted, everyone in the world is suddenly moral and of utmost integrity and everyone gets used to this new reality. The economic upside in lying/cheating is now so high that a few minutes later the world is back to exactly what it was, except for the first few persons to decide that lying wasn't such a bad idea, who are now a few billion dollars richer.

By definition, it is not integrity if you give it up immediately to gain an advantage by lying and cheating.

>This is your daily reminder that the Catholic Church is the organization with the most identified pedophiles in the world. (I'd have written "convicted", but they work really hard - and are really good - at preventing that outcome).

This a non-sequitur when you consider that there are over 4000 religions in the world, all with their own morality frameworks.

Re: The Amish health care system

#33

Post by bmelton »

markdown wrote: post #13
refurb wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what some universal systems already do. I was reading up on Singapore. There is a baseline of insurance for hospital stays, but it's in a ward with 6 other patients in the same room. If you want something better (and there are tiers), you pay more. You can buy insurance policies that pay for the more comfortable stay.

The same in Fiji. We have universal health care, but anyone is of course free to forego that and pay (or use their private insurance) for a private room rather than a ward, or just go to a private hospital instead. I don't understand the debate about this in the US. It's as if the rich assume that things will change for the worse for them if universal health care is enacted.

> It's as if the rich assume that things will change for the worse for them if universal health care is enacted.

Well, it depends on the implementation, but Bernie Sanders has been on record numerous times as stating that his Medicare-for-All proposal would absolutely ban private insurance. Elizabeth Warren is another Democratic front-runner who indicated that she's on board with that, though her proposals didn't necessarily reflect it.

For what it's worth, the M4A _plan_ from Bernie's camp that I've seen didn't actually specify that it would eliminate private insurance, but he's also been keen on reminding us that he wrote it, and knows best what's in it.

So while it seems unlikely to me that political reality in America would prohibit banning private insurance, there are definitely those who espouse banning it for the greater good, so perhaps that fear isn't wholly unwarranted.

Re: The Amish health care system

#34

Post by oconnor663 »

daenz wrote: post #14

>How do the Amish keep costs so low? R&D (plus a few other sources) identify some key strategies. >...the Amish are honorable customers. This separates them from insurance companies, who are constantly trying to scam providers however they can. Much of the increase in health care costs is “administrative expenses”, and much of these administrative expenses is hiring an army of lawyers, clerks, and billing professiona…

I think the biggest effects here are 1) whether the society is very large, and 2) whether it's made up of different groups of people who don't know each other very well. Both of those things make it difficult to have trust- or reputation-based systems. Religion and morality themselves must play some role, but I'd want to control for those first two things before I tried to draw and conclusions.

Re: The Amish health care system

#35

Post by bmelton »

floren wrote: post #18

I'm surely hopelessly naive and ill-informed for even asking, but is there a reason a hospital or clinic couldn't operate 100% without dealing with insurance? Do such places exist in the US? We always hear how the hospital sends a bill for $40,000, then the insurance company argues that down to $2000, but woe unto you if you DON'T have insurance because you'll have a hard time getting that same deal yourself. Couldn'…

There are cash-only doctors, or doctors who will accept cash as payment, and for what it's worth, the discounts for not using insurance can be substantial.

More importantly to me though was this less-talked-about perk of having a doctor who -- once he knows he's not just going to receive a negotiated rate from an insurer -- will actually take a little bit longer with you and hear out your complaints. Knowing that if you take longer, he can bill you more is actually a net good, IMO.

Re: The Amish health care system

#36

Post by lordnacho »

daenz wrote: post #14

>How do the Amish keep costs so low? R&D (plus a few other sources) identify some key strategies. >...the Amish are honorable customers. This separates them from insurance companies, who are constantly trying to scam providers however they can. Much of the increase in health care costs is “administrative expenses”, and much of these administrative expenses is hiring an army of lawyers, clerks, and billing professiona…

Isn't the key actually that they have the same moral compass, rather than them being more morally correct (objectivity is a long story on this subject)? That leads to fewer disagreements, as everyone comes up with the same answers for what's right and wrong.

As soon as you have a heterogenous group arguments will break out about what's right and wrong, how people should live, who gets what stuff...

Re: The Amish health care system

#37

Post by starpilot »

daenz wrote: post #14

>How do the Amish keep costs so low? R&D (plus a few other sources) identify some key strategies. >...the Amish are honorable customers. This separates them from insurance companies, who are constantly trying to scam providers however they can. Much of the increase in health care costs is “administrative expenses”, and much of these administrative expenses is hiring an army of lawyers, clerks, and billing professiona…

Japan > USA > Russia, in lawful citizenry. The order is the opposite in religiosity. Japan just has a coherent society.

Re: The Amish health care system

#38

Post by kamfc »

daenz wrote: post #14

>How do the Amish keep costs so low? R&D (plus a few other sources) identify some key strategies. >...the Amish are honorable customers. This separates them from insurance companies, who are constantly trying to scam providers however they can. Much of the increase in health care costs is “administrative expenses”, and much of these administrative expenses is hiring an army of lawyers, clerks, and billing professiona…

is there a list of recommended writings i can study on morals?

Re: The Amish health care system

#39

Post by The_rationalist »

testing312 wrote: post #29
daenz wrote: post #14

>How do the Amish keep costs so low? R&D (plus a few other sources) identify some key strategies. >...the Amish are honorable customers. This separates them from insurance companies, who are constantly trying to scam providers however they can. Much of the increase in health care costs is “administrative expenses”, and much of these administrative expenses is hiring an army of lawyers, clerks, and billing professiona…

> I'm not a religious person, but the thing that the anti-religion movements have failed spectacularly at is providing a universal, teachable framework for basic morality. But there is no universal, teachable framework for basic morality. Even the seemingly most basic rule: don't hurt anyone, has so many exceptions. There is no 'small' set of rules you can use to describe morality. Reality is messy, human interaction…

This is such nonsense. It's the 21st century and you never heard about utilitarism and game theory?

Re: The Amish health care system

#40

Post by v8engine »

daenz wrote: post #14

>How do the Amish keep costs so low? R&D (plus a few other sources) identify some key strategies. >...the Amish are honorable customers. This separates them from insurance companies, who are constantly trying to scam providers however they can. Much of the increase in health care costs is “administrative expenses”, and much of these administrative expenses is hiring an army of lawyers, clerks, and billing professiona…

> Imagine how many social problems would disappear if people had more integrity and stronger morals. Literally every aspect of life would improve.

Reminds me of playing https://ncase.me/trust/

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