Health Care

[ToneMerc]

My godson was born 4 months prematurely, when he finally got to go home the numerous costs were just over 600,000. Luckily his parents have good insurance and their out of pocket costs were around 9K.

My wife is a healthcare professional and administrator, the experiences above are typical of what she has relayed to me in the past. She can give you a 30 minute lecture on just the disparity of coding classifications across the different insurers.


FWIW, contrary to popular belief "obamacare" is not a program of gov't controlling healthcare like Canada,GB, Japan, Germany etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_car ... ted_States

FYI, for anybody that's serious about educating themselves about he American healthcare system verses just repeating the same old words from talk radio, 24-7 news and politicians, I would suggest you read this book. I picked it up back when first hit the stands, it's really eye opening.

http://www.amazon.com/Truth-About-Getti ... B004478AHK


TM

[Colossal]

My godson was born 4 months prematurely, when he finally got to go home the numerous costs were just over 600,000. Luckily his parents have good insurance and their out of pocket costs were around 9K.

This happened to some good friends. Cost them over $100,000 out of pocket with insurance.

[skyboltone]

I pay about $6050 annually out of my paycheck for medical and dental for my entire family (5 people). I have a $12k deductable YES $12k BUT my company pays the whole deductable. I have a credit card that I use for any deductable payments I need to make. My coverage is pretty good so I have no complaints at the moment.

That's a pretty good deal. And just for the record, I don't think it's the insurance companies so much as the lawyers. Anytime you add something for nothing you raise the cost for everyone. My neurologist hates the insurance companies though. But if you think fighting the insurance company is a bad deal wait to you start fighting the government. In any case, Obamacare is a done deal folks. It's best to figure out how to make lemonade now.

Dan

[Structo]

Did I hear the figures correct in that for most people the premiums will almost double?

[Firestorm]

The cost for medical care and prescription drugs has been rising well above the core inflation rate for many years. This is precisely because the government is involved and the law of supply and demand no longer applies (same thing with college tuition). But we're too far gone to fix it. If you're young and healthy, skip the coverage and pay the tax (Supreme Court says that's okay). In child-bearing years, you gotta spring for it. Then, go for catastrophic only coverage: pay cash for doctor visits. When you get to Medicare age, back on the government dole. It's a huge problem with few fixes.

[mlp-mx6]

I'm curious about another cost factor.

What percentage of medical procedures, treatments, and medications are created/invented/generated by the US medical community?

My theory in this case is that the cost of inventing these things is covered by the US system, and most other countries are able to adopt our techniques and technologies without funding the startup costs. Said differently, does the US medical system enable all the others to have much lower costs?

Is this realistic at all?

[LeftyStrat]

I'm curious about another cost factor.

What percentage of medical procedures, treatments, and medications are created/invented/generated by the US medical community?

My theory in this case is that the cost of inventing these things is covered by the US system, and most other countries are able to adopt our techniques and technologies without funding the startup costs.

Is this realistic at all?

Not for medications. Drug companies usually get patents for drugs they develop in all countries, so they have a monopoly on producing that drug for some time.

The kicker is that they sell the drug in each country at what they think the market will bear. For example, the price for the same drug in Canada vs the US is usually considerably lower.

The couple that live next door to me are both doctors, one is a general practitioner, the other an endocrinologist. They both make big bucks, but still have huge student loans to pay off. They both say that administrative costs are really bad, which echos what ToneMerc posted earlier. Basically the administrative process is different for every insurer.

If you want to understand high healthcare costs in the US, follow the money. You won't find too many Pharma or Health Insurances companies not making boatloads of money.

I'd argue it has more to do with money influencing our political process. The founding fathers had a vision of one person, one vote. Unfortunately, unless you're contributing millions to your "representative," I doubt he's got your number on speed dial.

[Bob S]

First off - I have no idea what Obamacare is.
The US medical system is seriously screwed up.
A great place for all for the insurance & drug companies.
Not to mention $1000 a night for a hospital bed.
That's one expensive hotel room...
I don't know if it can be fixed, but surely the richest country in the world can afford basic medical cover for all of it's people.

[LeftyStrat]

I don't know if it can be fixed, but surely the richest country in the world can afford basic medical cover for all of it's people.

I agree, and I think this should be a matter of nation security.

[mlp-mx6]

I don't know if it can be fixed, but surely the richest country in the world can afford basic medical cover for all of it's people.

I agree, and I think this should be a matter of nation security.

But we're not the richest nation in the world. We're the biggest debtor nation in the world. $16T in debt and rising quickly.

[billyz]

I don't know if it can be fixed, but surely the richest country in the world can afford basic medical cover for all of it's people.

I agree, and I think this should be a matter of nation security.

But we're not the richest nation in the world. We're the biggest debtor nation in the world. $16T in debt and rising quickly.

Perhaps it is our for profit health care system that is a major contributor to our debt problems. The other wealthy nations all have a universal health care system in place for their citizens. That and they do not go fighting wars all around the world.

[mlp-mx6]

Perhaps it is our for profit health care system that is a major contributor to our debt problems. The other wealthy nations all have a universal health care system in place for their citizens. That and they do not go fighting wars all around the world.

Do you really think that the primary drivers of our deficit are the non-universal-ness of our health care and some percentage of our military spending?

This is not an attack in any way. This is a genuine question.

[Jana]

I agree with Billyz. If you do some research on military expenditures and compare the US with the rest of the world, you will find that the US spends way more than anybody else does. I forget the exact figures but something like more than the next 10 countries combined.

There is a lot of waste and unnecessary spending in our healthcare system. I could give a lot of first-hand accounts of that but it is all stuff we have heard before.

There comes a time, in my opinion, that we need to step back and ask ourselves, how do other countries do it? How do they provided services to their citizens like healthcare, education, social safety nets for the elderly or disabled with the resources that they have? We need to be more open to options and get past the biased rhetoric. Maybe we, as a country, need to humble ourselves a bit and accept that our way may not be the only way and that other countries may have ideas that we can tweak and use.

Education would be a good place to start. How many of us, when we hear words and phrases that have a biased connotation, stop and ask ourselves, who said that and why. How many of us even recognize that a word or phrase has a connotation? Refer to this article for an example: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/12/ ... index.html

[NickC]

[img:543:726]http://www.federalbudget.com/chart.gif[/img]

Source
http://www.federalbudget.com/

[mlp-mx6]

For 2012 -

61.9% of all federal expenditures go to entitlements.
18.7% goes to defense.
7% goes to interest on the federal debt.
Total outlays: $3.563 trillion. $3,563,000,000,000.

One other observation about Canada - does the fact that the US protects North America, and Canada knows the US does and will continue to protect North America, free up Canada to spend their money differently?