How would you fix the U.S health care system?

[buffalo]

Top or near top of list…, get rid of regulations. Hospitalizations cost more due to meeting excessive government demands. Too many forms to fill out. It’s ashame that when you bruise your toe you have to answer questions about whether it was work related–All part of the red tape of worker’s compensation.

In other words, more freedom.

Hospitalization is not the fastest rising costs. Drugs are. Everyone is on them.

 

[DarkLight]

Hospitalization is not the fastest rising costs. Drugs are. Everyone is on them.

There’s also a lot of evidence that companies deliberately jack up prices when people don’t have alternatives. And the free market doesn’t always provide.

Look up all the mess with insulin prices lately.

 

[Pattylt]

It seems that much of healthcare is about group purchasing power. The large insurance companies with millions of members are able to negotiate prices that the small guys can’t. They negotiate the amount they pay for a hospitalization, a surgery, an office visit, a therapy session…yada yada.

The hospitals negotiate the prices they pay for equipment, drugs, reagents, qtips, Kleenex, bed sheets, yada yada.

Group medical practices do the same. Physical therapy centers do the same. This is why everyone is in a group of some kind. We have no independent hospitals in my state anymore…they are all a part of some group. This “lowers” their costs. Small hospitals were the first to join as, by themselves, they had no purchasing power.

This is also why you can’t figure out what anything costs. It depends on their group and your insurance and what was negotiated.

This has created problems and added another layer to healthcare…the negotiators, the group purchasers. If Aetna can negotiate a hundred dollar office visit as really only costing fifty dollars of which you pay twenty dollars out of pocket and Aetna pays thirty…why can’t everyone get that kind of pricing?

Open up all the books. Publish all the negotiated prices. Let those that can afford the negotiated prices but without being tied to insurance, do so. Then have all insurance companies cover patients at the same fees and amounts. Insurance companies will still have to compete to sign up customers but the only advantages they will have is how quickly they pay and how well they treat people. They all cover hospitals, doctors, therapists, etc. the same. No more negotiating different prices for each and every little and large thing.

Costs are then stable, billing is straight forward, no middlemen and everyone knows what the costs are. Workable? I have no idea…

 

[buffalo]

Drug companies pay for their research and development costs and make profit while still under patent protection and they go generic. Only a few make it through trials. We need to keep this in balance or new drug discoveries will decrease.

 

[DarkLight]

Drug companies pay for their research and development costs and make profit while still under patent protection and they go generic. Only a few make it through trials. We need to keep this in balance or new drug discoveries will decrease.

How do you propose to keep that balance without letting people die because they can’t afford treatment, given that private charity in this country is essentially useless when it comes to large recurring costs?

 

[buffalo]

How do you propose to keep that balance without letting people die because they can’t afford treatment, given that private charity in this country is essentially useless when it comes to large recurring costs?

When mother government confiscates so much little is left for private charity. Yet people still give from their hearts. Charity begets gratitude, government begets dependency and expectations.

Let the markets work. Hospitals already cover the less fortunate. We all end up paying for it. It is much better than any single payer system.

 

[DarkLight]

When mother government confiscates so much little is left for private charity. Yet people still give from their hearts. Charity begets gratitude, government begets dependency and expectations.

Let the markets work. Hospitals already cover the less fortunate. We all end up paying for it. It is much better than any single payer system.

No. Hospitals do not cover the less fortunate. This is a misconception that kills people and costs us millions of dollars every year.

Hospitals cover emergencies. They don’t cover the sort of routine care that prevents emergencies or keeps people from deteriorating. They certainly don’t cover the kind of treatment that will help people actually get back on their feet. Often poor people are on their own for that.

With something like diabetes, a hospital will stabilize someone in an insulin crisis and then drop them right back out with no way to prevent it from happening again. But they won’t provide the supplies and education someone needs to keep the emergency from happening again. Meanwhile the damage to the body from the repeated crises continues to accumulate to where modern medicine can’t fix it.

A lot of chronic disorders tend to end up in that pattern if the person has no money. The hospital will fix the crisis, but the lack of ongoing care means another one is bound to happen. So the person bounces in and out of the hospital. They’re not able to work because their condition isn’t stable enough. The hospital hopefully keeps them from dying, but it doesn’t do anything past that.

And frankly, I don’t want “charity” if it’s built on the attitude that I ought to be grateful for being allowed to live (and have basic things like a home and a job) because I happened to be born with different circumstances than other people did. I don’t think there’s been a time in the history of the world where we’ve relied on widespread charity to solve problems and it hasn’t simply become a system of taking advantage of the poor. Rather it tends to become a way for the wealthy to feel good in their wealth

 

[buffalo]

that I ought to be grateful for being allowed to live

That is in God’s hands. I am grateful daily God gives me the chance to live.

1. Q. Why did God make you?
   A. God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever in heaven.

Q. What must we do to save our souls?
A. To save our souls, we must worship God by faith, hope, and charity; that is, we must believe in Him, hope in Him, and love Him with all our heart.

 

[Metis1]

In regards to the OP, I would first start out with having Medicare extended to anyone who wants it but at the same time still allow people choice as to whether to keep their private insurance. However, I’m confident that eventually it would become Medicare for all as it is much more efficient than private insurance. The proof in the pudding is that of the 20 most industrialized countries, we spend more on healthcare (17% of GDP) than any other and, as a matter if fact, it’s not even close. And on top of that, they have universal coverage and we don’t.

BTW, where was that highly touted Republican plan that they said they said they could get passed, especially since they controlled the presidency and both houses? Matter of fact, they never even put forth any proposal to either body.

 

[DarkLight]

That is in God’s hands. I am grateful daily God gives me the chance to live.

In this context that’s avoiding the point. It’s no more than telling my brother “go your way, be warmed and filled!”