7 massive problems with our health care system
A $21,000 bill for heartburn? Health care is bankrupting the country, and there's little we can do about it. Here's what caused this crisis.
The prices we pay for health care are outrageous, and for those without health insurance, the costs are out of control. Consider the Connecticut woman who went to the hospital last year for chest pains only to find out it was a bad case of heartburn. She didn't have insurance, and Time reports that she got a bill for $21,000 -- $1,000 for the ambulance ride, $3,000 for doctors and $17,000 for a three-hour -- yes, three-hour -- hospital stay.
Her bill included charges for three protein-related blood tests at $199.50 each. Medicare would have paid $13.94 for each test at the same hospital, Time reports.
America spends 20% of its gross domestic product on health care. That's by far the most of any other country in the world.
How did things get this way? Why does medical help cost so much? Here are seven ways the system went off the rails:
1. No consistent pricing. Every hospital has an internal price list called a chargemaster, and none of those are consistent with each other, Brill reports. The prices keep going up almost automatically, a hospital executive tells the magazine.
2. Hospitals are consolidating. They're also buying doctors' offices, which means they can have more leverage over pricing.
3. They use the expensive technology first. That heartburn patient received an $8,000 CT scan first instead of a regular stress test that the hospital bills at $1,200. Did the doctors need to go straight for the pricey stress test? By the way, the cardiologist reading that test charged $600 just to do that.
4. They test too much. Doctors in the U.S. run far more tests on patients than in other countries. One doctor describes it as "giving out CT scans like candy" in the emergency room.
5. They're scared of lawsuits. No one complains when a test ends up solving a mystery illness or improving medical care. But boy, doctors will hear about it if they pass on a test that could have helped. So doctors overtest to guard against potential lawsuits. "We can't be sued for doing too much," one doctor told the magazine.
6. We let it happen. As Brill noted when he went on The Daily Show this week, patients generally green-light the tests without knowing the costs and accept all of this because they have little choice. "You're an involuntary entrant into the marketplace," he told host Jon Stewart. "There is no marketplace in the most important sense of the definition, which is, does the buyer have any power at all?"
7. Congress is weak. The pharmaceutical and health care industries have spent $5.36 billion since 1998 on lobbying Congress, Brill reports. There's no better way to force the government to buckle under your will.
The 36-page Time magazine piece is one of the most important articles to come out in years. It's well worth a read.
| Tags: | GovernmentHealth care |
One of the provisions of Obamacare is that insurance companies must pay out at least 80% of their premium dollars for actual healthcare. Imagine that!...20% of all our healthcare dollars going to nothing but an expensive middleman. What a racket! Grandaughter just had tubes placed in her ears due to chronic infections. It was a 15 minute outpatient procedure. Cost $8,000 so insurance company made $2,000 for total cost of $10,000. But I shouldn’t complain because we have the “greatest healthcare system in the world”…right?
I told the hospital they were not being paid and to sue me if they didn't like it. They called and I told them not to call again unless it was through a lawyer, they didn't. My week in the hospital consisted of an hour of surgery to remove necrosis, then being injected with antibiotics. They charged me $10,000. plus doctors etc. Their billing to me was $7,400. until they turned it over to the credit bureau, when it was bumped by 50%. Insurance was in place but they refused to pay because I had been attacked by brown recluse spiders at a motel, and they were contesting their payment. I found a lawyer, and they would not take the case unless the doctors were willing to testify in support of their bills. (The hospital and doctors flat refused, like it was beneath them.) One of the doctors sued me, and I won. The hospital turned it over to a collection agency, and I told them the situation and if they continued, I would sue them also- they refused to backdown or consider the situation that they, the hospital, and doctors caused their own mess.
I held my own, took the hit in the credit report, and refuse to buy on credit again, or go back to that hospital or their doctors. The U.S. medical system is corrupt and an abomination.
1: Medicaid
2: Medicare
3: Part D Prescription Drug benefits
4. Full-service health insurance inexplicably intertwined with employment benefits
5. Obamacare
6. Lawsuits, litigation, liability and sky-high malpractice premiums
7. The convoluted FDA drug approval process
Obama Care the answer to all. Coverage for all and controlled medical premiums. As it is in it's last year before implementation the government is actually believing the GAO projections that were cast out by the Democrats to get it passed. The system is in danger of collapsing under it's own weight if it is implemented. The cost has doubled since passed and it is not even in force. An additional tax of $63 per person per year is going to be implemented to help cover the cost. The 3-1 ratio of lowest cost to highest cost is being reviewed and bills have been submitted to change it back to a 6:1 ratio.
The estimates of companies that will drop their sponsored health plans has doubled. The amount of people who are going on medicaid is triple the estimates. There is not cost control. Premiums will rise this year and next on individual and group policies from 40-80% The ratio of estimated people buying coverage without a subsidy or medicaid eligibilty which will be the backbone of the system is to low to support the system without raising premiums substantially or putting substantial tax increases on all people in place. The amount of doctors in many area's is approx. 50% of those needed, with the AMA indicating of those 20% will retire in the next five years without replacements. A whole new level of government ee's will take over jobs that are already being done by social services or insurance agents. The cost of that structure alone is in the hundred of millions. Last but least the new plans have been unveiled in CA. If you are on a subsidy you get to choose one plan only. The amount of co-pays plus out of pocket maximum will be greater than those covered can afford. Medical insurance that cannot be used.
Say an un/under insured patient needs a knee replacement - comparing cost, the USA has become so expensive that not only is it much le$$ in other countries for the same quality care, a patient can pocket substantial green, take their spouse with, and vacation there for a week or two before or recovering from the surgery! Ex; Knee Replacement Surgery = Total Price $5490 (includes implant, surgeon, hospital, everything).
Hospital bill for wife's knee replacement - 45,873 (that's just the hospital charges). That's the price an uninsured person would pay.
Blue Cross Blue Shield plan allowance - 2,700.
Blue Cross paid - 2,450
Patient copay - 250
Total cost 2,700 with insurance.
In what world does that make sense ?
Right! The COST of medical care - it's OUT OF CONTROL. And this is the by-far greatest failing of "Obamacare". Obamacare mandates that we all BUY insurance. So that we ALL get to be part of the insurance-pool. So that there are MORE premium - payers and many more who are healthy and thus of little or NO COST to INSURANCE COMPANIES. This means bigger revenue and BIGGER PROFIT for insurance companies.
Notice that I keep mentioning INSURANCE. Insurance is NOT medical CARE. Obamacare does not provide or in any way ensure that more or all Americans get medical CARE. It DOES attempt to ensure that health INSURANCE COMPANIES collect more paying clients and get more income.
Insurance companies in turn pay doctors and hospitals. So the CUSTOMER of those medical care services - YOU - are hereby sidelined and disconnected from almost all of the usual market mechanisms seen in other goods and services. YOU have no say = no choice in what care you get in most cases (article describes a case of this...) and NO SAY what-so-ever in what is CHARGED for these services. So there is little "market control" over costs of medical care. Medical Care is a money-mill for providers. Doctors and hospitals simply tell insurance companies they want more, and the companies are free to raise their premiums. YOU are of course NOT FREE and MUST pay the more.
And, under Obamacare, YOU, the BUYER (and consumer of med care services) have zero control or influence on any of this.
Obamacare is failing us - The biggest way is that it simply has ZERO COST CONTROL. All it does is ensure that YOU get to pay insurance companies. It does NOT put any limit on how much hospitals, doctors charge or get paid. So. Is anyone surprised to see that medical CARE cost is going UP and will continue to do so? It will go UP until someone forces this growth to STOP.
Maybe YOU, the electorate, can do something to save your wallet... elect folks to Congress with a STRICT COMMAND - an assigned JOB DUTY - to act NOW to put a stop to this. And back this up - IF they don't do what YOU tell THEM TO DO, FIRE THEM. No. I don't mean say "we'll not vote for you again". I mean - treat these politicians like they really are YOUR EMPLOYEES - IF YOU don't do what your boss told you to do, does he/she say let YOU get away with not doing your job and assigned duties? I doubt it. I'll wager YOU will get FIRED. You know. The old PINK SLIP. No pension, no cushy benefits, no watch, no plaque, no take-home prizes. Just a YOU ARE FIRED slip. Don't let the door hit you on your way OUT.
I know. I dream of this! Too bad YOU folks all don't actually CARE whether you get the chance to PAY for medical INSURANCE or GET reasonably-priced medical CARE. If YOU DID, we wouldn't be having THIS thread!
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