Social Exhibit A of Healthcare cost problem in USA

[GearSolidMetal]

Such as?

Off the top of my head...

Once the cost of healthcare dependent upon the patient's ability to pay, without insurance or government subsidies, costs will lower dramatically.

Allow insurance companies to compete across state lines.

Additionally, every patient's ability to compare costs of different hospitals and doctors would help advance this. Make healthcare a competitive free market again.

Require transparent costs before all medical appointments and procedures to both insurance companies and patients.

No more $500 bills for a band-aid.
No $25K ambulance rides.
No other bullshit patients realise they can't afford until they get the bill in the mail.

No more doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies fleecing desperate patients.

 

[The ScorpioN]

US might be the highest ranking but Canada and UK arent far behind. Both countries have terrible diets, in general.

Also Im pretty sure healthcare is more than just giving fat people pills but dont let me interrupt your poorly constructed straw man!!

So all Ive heard from you guys is. you dont want single payer because you dont want to give healthcare to:

1. Brown people
2. Poor people
3. Fat people

Well I guess youre back to your roots, then only rich, sexy, white land-owning aristocrats should get health care.

Nope, literally just fat people. Keep your racist revenge fantasies in other threads buddeh.
Healthcare in the US is not preventative. It's selling you pills that you don't need at a price you can't afford. Preventative healthcare is all on you.

 

[D3thr0n3d K1ng]

Off the top of my head...

Once the cost of healthcare dependent upon the patient's ability to pay, without insurance or government subsidies, costs will lower dramatically.

Hospitals already do this with charity accounts. They base the final bill on the patients income which reduces it by 25,50, or 75% and use the difference as a tax write-off. Doesnt seem to be having much effect on prices, and if anything is probably causing hospitals to charge even more since they know 95% of the patients will be getting some kind of discount.

Allow insurance companies to compete across state lines.

Arent they doing that already? BCBS is already in pretty much every state as is Aetna, United Healthcare, and most of the other major players. Doesnt seem to be having any effect at all.

Additionally, every patient's ability to compare costs of different hospitals and doctors would help advance this. Make healthcare a competitive free market again.

Require transparent costs before all medical appointments and procedures to both insurance companies and patients.

No more $500 bills for a band-aid.
No $25K ambulance rides.
No other bullshit patients realise they can't afford until they get the bill in the mail.

No more doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies fleecing desperate patients.

And how would you enact this without the government stepping in and forcing providers to disclose this information by law? This murkiness is regards to prices is one of the ways they are able to make so much to begin with.

 

[GearSolidMetal]

Hospitals already do this with charity accounts. They base the final bill on the patients income which reduces it by 25,50, or 75% and use the difference as a tax write-off. Doesnt seem to be having much effect on prices, and if anything is probably causing hospitals to charge even more since they know 95% of the patients will be getting some kind of discount.

So if they're giving a patient a 75% discount to be written off in tax subsidies, they're charging the patient four times more than he's able to pay.

Hell, might as well make it five or six times, because what's stopping them?

Arent they doing that already? BCBS is already in pretty much every state as is Aetna, United Healthcare, and most of the other major players. Doesnt seem to be having any effect at all.

Yeah, some companies cover multiple states, but that ignores the question why there are state boundaries in the first place.

It certainly isn't in the financial interests of the patients.

And how would you enact this without the government stepping in and forcing providers to disclose this information by law? This murkiness is regards to prices is one of the ways they are able to make so much to begin with.

I'm quite sure there's a way it can be figured out. My post wasn't supposed to be a 30-point detailed plan, just giving broad ideas.

Not unlike the promises of socialistic universal healthcare.

 

[D3thr0n3d K1ng]

So if they're giving a patient a 75% discount to be written off in tax subsidies, they're charging the patient four times more than he's able to pay.

Hell, might as well make it five or six times, because what's stopping them?

So you think all these people going bankrupt are actually getting really good deals, but are just Marxists cucks who don't want to work and refuse to pay these competitively priced bills?

Yeah, some companies cover multiple states, but that ignores the question why there are state boundaries in the first place.

So if companies are in multiple states where is all this competition heading to lower prices? It's almost as if they've all agreed to not compete so they can all have the same profit margins.....

It certainly isn't in the financial interests of the patients.

But you guys said it would lead to competition and lower prices...

I'm quite sure there's a way it can be figured out. My post wasn't supposed to be a 30-point detailed plan, just giving broad ideas.

Not unlike the promises of socialistic universal healthcare.

So basically you guys don't have a plan, just pie in the sky bullzhit to pretend you do or care meanwhile you're content with everybody getting ripped off and scammed for healthcare.

The right wing in a nutshell essentially.

 

[Fluffernutter]

Wife noticed a mole on my back looks different than it used to.

Went to the doctor to get it checked.

Doctor said: "hmmmmm....let's take a biopsy and send it to the lab."

Doctor left the room to look for the tool to remove the mole.

Doctor came back without the tools for the biopsy because they couldn't find them.

So, nothing was done. But, I still got a bill for the exam.

 

[wufabufa]

the cheapest healthcare is exercise , proper diet, and lots of water and sleep. The self-healing powers of a healthy body are incredible.

This is the truth.

Unfortunately here in America, we prioritize work and vice over everything else which wrecks our bodies. And when healthcare is needed, it's actually more like sickcare. Preventative medicine isn't what keeps the lights on in the hospitals.

 

[HomeCheese]

Off the top of my head...

Once the cost of healthcare dependent upon the patient's ability to pay, without insurance or government subsidies, costs will lower dramatically.

Allow insurance companies to compete across state lines.

Additionally, every patient's ability to compare costs of different hospitals and doctors would help advance this. Make healthcare a competitive free market again.

Require transparent costs before all medical appointments and procedures to both insurance companies and patients.

No more $500 bills for a band-aid.
No $25K ambulance rides.
No other bullshit patients realise they can't afford until they get the bill in the mail.

No more doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies fleecing desperate patients.

All these things sound okay on the surface but none of the things you mention are game changers. Hospital pricing structure is based on leveraging insurance companies that reimburse based on a percentage of charges. Prices are high because programs like Medicare and Medicaid reimburse hospital's at below cost. In much or America Medicare and Medicaid make up 70% of a hospital's business so they need to stick it to everybody else to survive. More insurance companies selling insurance across state lines will not change the cost of healthcare one bit.

These ideas are almost meaningless in the real world.

 

[BarryDillon]

https://www.wifr.com/content/news/N...rough-ER-doors-for-cat-scratch-565225102.html

Man gets scratched by a stray cat and it draws blood. He's worried about diseases so calls his doctor. His doctors says to go to the ER and get a rabies vaccine shot to be safe (because clinics don't often carry it)

While at the ER, man Google costs of rabies vaccines and is worried at what he finds. He asks the nurses and doctors how much the shot will cost. No one can give him an answer. He's just going to get a bill in the mail later.

Man decides to go against his doctor's instructions and risk getting badly sick because he's fearful of getting a 10k plus bill that will significantly harm his quality of living elsewhere. A few months later, he still got a bill of $2,500 for his visit. 2300 of that simply for walking through the door (the rest a tetanus shot and an ibuprofen). On the bill, it showed that if he had gotten the rabies shot his doctor told him to get that non of the ER docs or nurses could tell him the price of, it would have been $13,048.

In summary, the prices are out of control, and the cost isn't available to the customer which should be illegal. I don't believe simply shifting the burden of $2300 for going to Er and nothing else, and a $13k "just in case" rabies shot to the tax bill will solve the problem. But a solution involving price fixing for anything mass produced and mandating price transparency I would be very behind.

We need the demand power of universal healthcare to force prices down.

 

[HomeCheese]

Healthcare in the US is not preventative. It's selling you pills that you don't need at a price you can't afford. Preventative healthcare is all on you.

Yes. The US doesn't have a health system, it has a disease treatment system. Very poor primary care system, wait until you are super sick before gong to the ER.

 

[OAKS]

The stuff happens all the time.

 

[GearSolidMetal]

So you think all these people going bankrupt are actually getting really good deals, but are just Marxists cucks who don't want to work and refuse to pay these competitively priced bills?

So here we go, back to the 'so you think' and 'marxists...'

My position, in short, is government control is the absolute last thing that would be any possible solution for our healthcare problems.

If you disagree, please list all the improvements Obamacare made to the system, nationwide, for everyone, because it certainly didn't make it cheaper as advertised.

So basically you guys don't have a plan, just pie in the sky bullzhit to pretend you do or care meanwhile you're content with everybody getting ripped off and scammed for healthcare.

The right wing in a nutshell essentially.

Sounds like the pitch made for Obamacare.

 

[Headkicktoleg]

Prices are high because programs like Medicare and Medicaid reimburse hospital's at below cost.

So you agree it's the government's fault medical prices are so high

 

[ryan3434]

Canada is a much more advanced place than America. Our healthcare system actually looks after people, and provides word class coverage to everyone. America has major problems with healthcare. For such a rich country, what the hell is going on there?

I've always wondered what the difference is between the 2 countries.

I pay almost 300 a month for benifets work pays other half. 600 a month for my family and all it covers is like 80 percent of meds some dental physio and a few others. Seems exceptionally high imo.

I'd love to know what gets covered on a benifets plan in the US to compare.

 

[AndroidRage]

As someone who had a $500 bill for getting wax removed from a clogged ear a few months ago, and it took a doctor all but five minutes, that was all I needed to experience to finally realise healthcare prices are getting out of control.

I'm NOT willing to support socialized healthcare, but I'm very interested in other free-market solutions.

The ACA aka Obamacare was the free markets solution. Lmao

 

[superpunch]

Off the top of my head...

Once the cost of healthcare dependent upon the patient's ability to pay, without insurance or government subsidies, costs will lower dramatically.

Allow insurance companies to compete across state lines.

Additionally, every patient's ability to compare costs of different hospitals and doctors would help advance this. Make healthcare a competitive free market again.

Require transparent costs before all medical appointments and procedures to both insurance companies and patients.

No more $500 bills for a band-aid.
No $25K ambulance rides.
No other bullshit patients realise they can't afford until they get the bill in the mail.

No more doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies fleecing desperate patients.

Those are all experimental ideas. They might work, they might not work.

Universal healthcare isn't experimental. It's been proven to work all over the world. Why not just do what's proven to work? Ideology?

 

[GearSolidMetal]

The ACA aka Obamacare was the free markets solution. Lmao

Jacking up premiums to pay for pre-existing conditions, forcing men pay for prenatal coverage, and forcing everyone to buy insurance... all isn't 'free market solutions.'

Where did you get that talking point from, MoveOn.org?

 

[GearSolidMetal]

Those are all experimental ideas. They might work, they might not work.

Yeah, that was why I posted them, to spitball a few ideas. Because 'have the government fix it' is not a solution.

Universal healthcare isn't experimental. It's been proven to work all over the world.

Yeah, like Venezuela.

Working perfectly down there.

No problems whatsoever.

Oh wait..

Venezuela's Health Care System Ready To Collapse Amid Economic Crisis

https://www.npr.org/2018/02/01/5824...system-ready-to-collapse-amid-economic-crisis

Why not just do what's proven to work? Ideology?

Oh I'm sure its 'proven to work' exactly how the politicians know it would.

 

[superpunch]

Yeah, that was why I posted them, to spitball a few ideas. Because 'have the government fix it' is not a solution.



Yeah, like Venezuela.

Working perfectly down there.

No problems whatsoever.

Oh wait..

Venezuela's Health Care System Ready To Collapse Amid Economic Crisis

https://www.npr.org/2018/02/01/5824...system-ready-to-collapse-amid-economic-crisis



Oh I'm sure its 'proven to work' exactly how the politicians know it would.

In the US I was paying ~$400 a month for coverage that didn't kick in until I spent $7000 out of pocket and it didn't cover dental. Even if your reforms literally improve that system 200% and make it twice as good, it still sucks.

I'm paying $50 a month and my employer pays $50 a month. I get near 0 deductible full coverage healthcare and dental. Why wouldn't you want that?

That's how healthcare is in the rest of the first world. Can your ideas offer that? If not, why not support what does offer that?

The (first world) country I'm now actually spends less tax dollars on healthcare per person than America does. I didn't say less dollars on healthcare. I said less tax dollars on healthcare. So you'd lower your taxes with this system. The GDP spent on healthcare is also the global average: ~8%. The US spends 20%. So, in addition to lower taxes, every American would get a 12% salary raise under this system.

 

[second sight]

its my understanding rabies shots are only given by the government and they only except cash payments