Why Medical Bills are Killing Us, by Steven Brill - Page 19

On February 26 2013 18:38 theinfamousone wrote:
The problem with health care and free market are so numerous I could be here all night. For one, people just won't stomach the idea of citizens getting turned away bleeding or not helping someone who's not breathing, or whatever it may be when there's people like Kim Kardashian that make millions of dollars for ditzing through life and blow it on gold lamborginis or whatever. It's just not going to happen. So if you accept that fact, you have to realize right away that we'll never have 100% of the population able to afford their health care no matter how reasonable it is. Therefore a true free market will never work.

Currently about 50% (and falling as a trend for the last 20 years) of Americans have medical coverage through their work. The other 50% either don't have any insurance or the government pays for it either through medicare or medicaid or whatever. So when I say we'll never reach 100%, I mean closer to 50%.

Here's a few problems with US healthcare. The government is forcing doctors and hospitals and pharmacies to work at a loss when providing care for people on medicare/medicaid. The problem with that is that then people who are NOT on medicare/medicaid must make up the difference. A friend I know told me the hospital he's an accountant for loses as much as a million dollars a month, and overall are operating on a .5% profit. But when 70% of their work is either government or uninsured people and they're losing money serving these people, the insured have to make up for it. As more baby boomers retire, there's more on the government health plans and less with traditional insurance so profit is getting whittled at both ends. On top of that, the baby boomer generation is getting old which means they need many times the healthcare that young people do.

This is why we're seeing health care expense rise at several multiples of the inflation rate. My accountant friend told me just in in the last 5 years it's gone from 70% commercial work (insured) and 30% government funded to 30% commercial and 70% government funded.

So even though 50% of the population has insurance, it's the healthy 50% which means they don't use it all that much. For example, more than 50% of babies are born under medicaid (healthcare for the poor) because the child bearing age group is likely to need it even though much less than 50% of the population is on medicaid.

One MAIN problem with healthcare the way it is in the US is that people just don't buy insurance until they need it. You can't just expect insurances to start paying for sick people who's not paying in their share without raising everyone else's rates. Obamacare will kind of solve this, although it's a really dumb way to do it.

Insurance companies are a clinic (pardon the pun) in bureaucracy that end up adding at least 20% (on a good day) dead weight to the whole thing.

Now, when you figure how much money goes into a hospital's billing department to keep track of thousands of patients, thousands of insurance policies and programs and all of the time it takes to negotiate (it took me 6 months to get a bill from a clinic I got a shot at because they were negotiating with my insurance for that long and they told me it can take up to a year). The billing department can add as much as 30% to the medical bill compared to a hospital in Canada with a single payer system.

Then you've got tort issues like people that sue a hospital for $30 million (guess who's pocket that comes out of?). I could go on.

On February 27 2013 06:47 ImAbstracT wrote:
My dad recently got diagnosed with cancer, so you can imagine the amount of bills that are coming in. Once you or a loved one gets a serious illness you really will see how screwed up our system in America really is.

On February 26 2013 19:51 Sadist wrote:




You didnt even read the god damn time article or even watch the interview. FFS please stop posting this bullshit. I swear there are so many trolls/incompetent people in this thread its disgusting.

On February 28 2013 03:31 RCMDVA wrote:

For the exact same level of service. Nurse looks at my kid. Vet assistant looks at my dog. Doc gives my kid a once-over. Vet gives my dog a once-over. Nurse give my kid some shots. Vet assistant gives my kid some shots. Both office time all total ~30 minutes.

On February 28 2013 03:45 farvacola wrote:

I was hoping he meant that he had brought his goat along with him. Kids of all kinds need shots!

On a more serious note, I don't think comparing veterinary healthcare with human healthcare makes a lot of sense........
That being said, the insurance/provider markup schema is pretty ridic.

On February 27 2013 06:42 Blargh wrote:
It's pretty normal for like, 90% of people to skip the OP. I generally read the first few pages (1-5 if it's interesting enough, then last 3 so that I can actually get into a discussion). I don't want to repeat what other's have said. And if I see an idiot is trying to make a shit-argument in the last couple of pages, I'll make a long post telling them why what they are saying is totally retarded and that it is actually like X.

But anyway, it'd be nice to see a detailed sum-up of other well-developed countries (Scandinavia, Japan, etc.) have their medical care distributed (not really distributed, but you know what I mean!). Japan has one (if not the longest) life expectancy and I imagine their medicine is great. But do they have a socialized medical system where hospitals are run through government or is it all privatized? Someone could have posted this but I missed it/forgot.

On February 24 2013 00:16 Vivax wrote:
May I ask what the average doctor earns in the U.S ? Reading the sums for treatments and little diagnostic measures I'd imagine it to be a lot.