301–310 of 312 posts
This is normal on all western Europe states. However France has very high standards in general about health care and is regarded as one of the best systems. I think it's time for US citizens to accept that most of Europe has better life expectancy, lower infant mortality than US, and to be ill is not a financial tragedy. Moreover the treatment that a low-income and high-income citizen receives is very similar, so the…
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I wondered about that as well, I pay like 40%...
40% on all of your income? Or is it tiered? Where do you live?
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That impression probably comes from the fact that you're not on the payer side of the bills, you're always on the receiver side.
> That impression probably comes from the fact that you're not on the payer side of the bills Everyone's on the payer side of the bills. We're happy being on this side.
If you pay 10 dollars and get a car while someone else pays 100000 and get the same car you're on the receiving side.
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People in France pay less than half what people in the USA pay for healthcare, and they also get much better quality of healthcare as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea... How are you "free" when you're being scammed by your insurance companies and hospitals into paying more than twice what you should be for your inferior healthcare?
If insurance companies and hospitals are scamming people, then why aren't people investing in those companies? Or why aren't people starting a insurance company or hospital? If there's really a scam, people could make good money from it.
People do. Generally wealthy people. That there is so much money being made in the healthcare industry is a large part of the problem.
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> Your wealth will survive a health problem. Really? Maybe a long duration but highly curable health problems. What happens to the blind or someone who loses both arms? Do they really have more wealth than their counterparts in the US?
yes, their existing wealth will survive (to allow them to adapt their life to their new condition, probably).
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2016/10/...
I can almost guarantee that nearly all of the 30% of Americans WITH savings have health insurance with an out of pocket max.
I can almost guarantee that many of the people without insurance are in the no savings group.
So perhaps I am missing something, but I am not seeing a huge group of Americans that have their wealth in danger by the current healthcare system.
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But you can buy health insurance instead of public healthcare. But you lose the freedom to decide.
>So yes, that's precisely the trade-off. We accept to lose a little bit of s/money/freedom-of-decision in exchange for the ability to flourish.
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The primary issue with the system before Obama was two-fold. 1) Too many young people didn't insure themselves meaning that the relatively low cost of having them as insured couldn't be used to balance out the higher cost needed for later on in life. This was putting the primary burden of the cost on the older generations. By forcing everyone to pay the idea was that you could even out the cost. 2) Pre-existing condi…
1) Too many young people didn't insure themselves meaning that the relatively low cost of having them as insured couldn't be used to balance out the higher cost needed for later on in life. This was putting the primary burden of the cost on the older generations. This shouldn't be a significant problem. In an actuarial sense, the burden of the cost should largely be born by the party with the risk. If you aren't doin…
> The real problem with cost in the US healthcare system is that the majority of people have a third party payer that will cover almost anything, so they don't care whether prices are remotely fair or not. The "agency problem".
Yes!
The funny thing is people in the U.S. are so indoctrinated and separated from costs that even smart doctors make fun of you (and eventually lash out at you if you EVEN DARE to ask what a specific procedure is going to cost): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12522037
Or look at the condescending post at Quora: https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-find-a-general-physician-in-S...
If the participants in the healthcare industry itself have no understanding of the issues it faces, and suffer from such apathy in realizing when told about it, I am afraid there will never be a solution
> We should stop making it advantageous for employers to provide insurance (I'm sure someone will be outraged by my supporting this opportunity for employers to lower compensation, I don't care, I paid out of pocket for 2 CT scans last year and know our healthcare prices are nonsense).
Yes!
Employers should have no say who the provider/doctor/lab for an employee should be.
Quora: https://www.quora.com/Would-the-average-person-who-gets-his-...
The U.S. has ended up with a system where every party except the patient stands to benefit.
While this is inconvenient for me (I can just fly to another state or at worst, to India for very expensive procedures, it's embarrassing to see Americans get into debt to fix a broken leg!)
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I don't think "the cost skyrocketed out of control". The cost is simply reflective of the leverage the health care provider and all the middle men in between hold against the patient. It's just that in other countries you have the government setting up a monopsony and dictating costs and salaries. I don't see how charging $30k for a heart bypass is unreasonable for somebody making $50k/year.
Reducing cost is always good. Is not that mantra of free market and capitalism?
Unfortunately, a free market for helathcare does not exist in the U.S.
I still giggle a bit every single time one of these EU healthcare stories pops up. It highlights a core difference between one of the two most "advanced" places in the western world. For us Europeans, we don't even think that free healthcare, free education ( university included ) , and free state support when things go wrong is a right. It is a as essential as a core human function as breathing and blinking. We don'…
> For us Europeans, we don't even think that free healthcare, free education ( university included ) , and free state support when things go wrong is a right. Many people in the UK fear for the life expectancy of the NHS. It's featured in the media very often. Ditto welfare benefits. We pay for dental care and prescriptions. Hospitals and health centre are closing left, right and centre. Benefits are being slashed in…
I'm sure it's great ... in France. Because here in the province of Québec (Canada) it's hell on wheels. Granted we have 'free' access to healthcare, but waiting 24 hours in an emergency room is not uncommon due to the shortage of Doctors and low incentives for them to work in the public system. I think it's only marginally better than the USA because it's cheaper, but the actual care you get is scary bad in most hosp…
There are sometimes long very wait times for non critical scheduled tests, which is a problem.
The real problem is people with chronic conditions who will have to dedicate much more of their life to their health, which is dangerously demoralizing and a career killer, but I am not sure that's much different in other parts of the world.