51–60 of 60 posts
The final figure claims less than 0.3 general practitioners per 100,000. That would amount to around 1000 general practitioners in the country which is at least two orders of magnitude low.
You're saying there are 100,000 general practitioners in the US? Even that number may be low, as this WSJ article says the US has "352,908 primary-care doctors". The article also says there are around 954,000 total doctors in the US.
What I find interesting about the "We beat Canada" idea is how few Canadians move to the USA in search of better health care. Rich Canadians take advantage of the porous border by travelling to the US and paying for certain procedures, but generally when someone permanently moves from Canada to the US, it's always in search of economic improvement. I would like to see statistics showing that Canadians would happily t…
Public healthcare is a cornerstone of Canadian national identity, in part because we recognize how bad the American system is. There are always ideologues who are inspired to emulate the American system, but they never get any traction with the electorate because healthcare privatization is the third rail of Canadian politics. If Canadians move to the US it's in spite of the American healthcare system. I've never hea…
The US is easily the best country in the world in which to be rich.
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Public healthcare is a cornerstone of Canadian national identity, in part because we recognize how bad the American system is. There are always ideologues who are inspired to emulate the American system, but they never get any traction with the electorate because healthcare privatization is the third rail of Canadian politics. If Canadians move to the US it's in spite of the American healthcare system. I've never hea…
In fairness, as a Canadian living in the US, if I were really rich I might move here because of the quality of healthcare I could get. This doesn't mean the system does the greatest good for the greatest number (by any stretch). The US is easily the best country in the world in which to be rich.
The minute number of people who are able to chance paying seven-figure medical bills out of pocket might enjoy the US system, but I doubt that group encompasses even a majority of 'rich' Americans, by any reasonable definition.
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Ok, fine. So we are in agreement that health outcomes are roughly even. Insurance companies don't make much in the way of profits. Those greedy pigs have profit margins roughly the same as home improvement stores, textile-apparel clothing and slightly less than packaging and containers. (And keep in mind, this was a good year for them. They all raised prices significantly in anticipation of Obamacare.) http://biz.yah…
> Insurance companies don't make much in the way of profits. Those greedy pigs have profit margins roughly the same as home improvement stores, textile-apparel clothing and slightly less than packaging and containers. And, their total profit plus executive salaries is a small fraction of the amount of admitted Medicare fraud. I mention medicare because it's supposedly more efficient, but that's based solely comparing…
Do you have a citation for this? It doesn't sound implausible, but a citation would be nice.
The author stumbled over one of the most important pieces of data - GP's per 100,000 people. The author notes we have the lowest doctor:population ratio, adding: "And that’s after spending way, way, way more money than anyone else" The problem is that we don't let the market decide on the right number of doctors - the training of new doctors is a function of the number of residencies, which is jointly controlled by c…
I agree with what you said, but there's another dimension as well (as I mention elsewhere in this thread, see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2263931 ). We also enforce MDs being the gatekeeper to various medical stuff. Many things we insist must be done by a doctor could be done without that degree. There are certainly a lot of things that someone with the knowledge of a LPN or Army medic could do just fine (say…
I can only imagine that retired nurses, field medics, and EMTs (you know, people with real training in this stuff) all being able to legally administer rudimentary healthcare to their local communities would provide much-needed care for a great many cases, thereby increasing the quality of life for many more people.
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A) Call it even for health outcomes if you'd like, we could argue the numbers regarding demographics, lifestyle and all that until the cows come home, but health in Canada/UK/France/Japan definitely isn't materially worse. So for the sake of argument let's just call it even, except we're spending several times as much. (we actually spend more gov't money on healthcare per capita than many companies with socialized me…
Ok, fine. So we are in agreement that health outcomes are roughly even. Insurance companies don't make much in the way of profits. Those greedy pigs have profit margins roughly the same as home improvement stores, textile-apparel clothing and slightly less than packaging and containers. (And keep in mind, this was a good year for them. They all raised prices significantly in anticipation of Obamacare.) http://biz.yah…
Except all of those things involve moving stuff around. Insurance is just bit flipping in the banks when you get down to it, paperwork at the absolute worst. They should be able to manage way lower margins, they're moving money on paper instead of goods. But they don't, because they're an entrenched industry which puts less competitive pressure on them.
However you're right in that soaking the insurance companies won't make up the gap. We need to get smarter and be more efficient. As a first step, why don't we just the other 6 members of the G7, since they deliver equivalent outcomes for much cheaper? I'm not a healthcare expert but the topline numbers say it all. Healthcare's killing us on all aspects of everyone's budget. There could still be a role for insurance companies, there is in europe.. let's just do what works.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Insurance companies don't make much in the way of profits. Those greedy pigs have profit margins roughly the same as home improvement stores, textile-apparel clothing and slightly less than packaging and containers. And, their total profit plus executive salaries is a small fraction of the amount of admitted Medicare fraud. I mention medicare because it's supposedly more efficient, but that's based solely comparing…
And, their total profit plus executive salaries is a small fraction of the amount of admitted Medicare fraud. Do you have a citation for this? It doesn't sound implausible, but a citation would be nice.
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/medicare-fraud-costs-taxpaye... says that the govt admits to $60B/year in medicare fraud.
http://issa.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=... says that the number is closer to $150B .
Meanwhile, the govt recovered $4B in 2010. http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kwgs/news.newsmain/article... .
IIRC, the total profit by private healthcare companies was less than $10B in 2009 and the executive salaries total was under $1B. You've said that the 2010 numbers are somewhat better.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, fine. So we are in agreement that health outcomes are roughly even. Insurance companies don't make much in the way of profits. Those greedy pigs have profit margins roughly the same as home improvement stores, textile-apparel clothing and slightly less than packaging and containers. (And keep in mind, this was a good year for them. They all raised prices significantly in anticipation of Obamacare.) http://biz.yah…
>Those greedy pigs have profit margins roughly the same as home improvement stores, textile-apparel clothing and slightly less than packaging and containers. Except all of those things involve moving stuff around . Insurance is just bit flipping in the banks when you get down to it, paperwork at the absolute worst. They should be able to manage way lower margins, they're moving money on paper instead of goods. But th…
If there were no competitive pressure, why didn't insurance companies raise prices a lot higher? That's what ISPs did, resulting in a profit margin of 28%.
As for copying the G7, which of the other 6 members of the G7 do you propose copying? And how will imposing their system in the US prevent the overuse of medical services?
Do you think that Americans will say "our health care system is now just like France, maybe I better act like a Frenchman and not run to the doctor because I have the sniffles?"
The final figure claims less than 0.3 general practitioners per 100,000. That would amount to around 1000 general practitioners in the country which is at least two orders of magnitude low.
> at least two orders of magnitude low. You're saying there are 100,000 general practitioners in the US? Even that number may be low, as this WSJ article says the US has "352,908 primary-care doctors". The article also says there are around 954,000 total doctors in the US.
The resulting marketplace, including availability of treatment, is correspondingly skewed. We pay for crisis management, not health management.