Problems in United States Health Care

[T.A.Stobie_SFO]

This is a subthread of Improving Health Care in the United States at forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=294423 .

It is focused on addressing the problems currently within the health care system.

This thread is not for proposing solutions, but rather identifying the problems and their root causes within the current system.

 

[T.A.Stobie_SFO]

From my webpage on Improving Health Care, I List:

1. 
   *]Lack of Consumer Awareness of Medical Pricing - Most consumers are unaware of what medical care costs or the availabilty of lower cost options to the medical care that they receive. Many medical plans isolate the customer from the true costs of the service and use co-payments that do not vary with the cost of the service.
   *]Excessive Government Restrictions and Requirements on Health Care - In many areas, government require medical plans and providers to include certain services even if they are morally opposed to the service.
   *]Frivolous Medical Lawsuits - There are way too many lawsuits about medical malpractive encouraged by lawyers hoping to make a quick buck.
   *]Unaffordable Health Care for Many - The current system makes it hard for the poor to select low cost health care that covers basic areas or covers emergency or life threating situations.
   *]Lack of General Health Care Coverage Options - The current system encouraged by government regulations generally treat all consumers as if they want the same coverage “one size fits all”. There is some consumer choice in whether to use a HMO, a PPO, or a general medical insurance and some have the option of a Medical Saving Account, but these tend to follow the same mold and not a great variety in the options of health care available.
   *]Lack of Diversity in Medical Oversight - Overseeing Medical Associations, whether government based (federal or state) or non-profit organization, currently are monopolistic in nature, and tend to advocate views based on politics rather than true medical science.
   *]Excessive Medical Pricing - In many areas, primarily where competition is limited, medical prices are excessive and prey on consumer by encouraging their fears or providing incomplete information about the product. Comparitive analysis between products is not widely available.
   *]Poor Handling of Pre-existing conditions - Health care plan providers often use pre-existing conditions as an excuse to avoid coving particular medical problems.
   *]Fraudulent Abuse of the System - There are people who take advantage of the system by submitting false claims.

 

[T.A.Stobie_SFO]

A Kansas State Representative sent me

One of the biggest drivers of increased health insurance costs are the insurance mandates. The year after the Kansas Legislature passed “mental health parity,” making it a mandate for all insurance companies in Kansas to cover any mental health issues, the costs sky-rocketed. Then people could no longer afford their health insurance. I don’t know if you heard, but the big bailout bill Congress passed recently had national mandates for insurance mental health coverage.

We have more special interest groups coming to the legislature every session asking for insurance mandates. This year it will be autism, and no legislator wants to say no for such a worthwhile cause. However every mandate ratchets up insurance costs. Florida took a step recently of eliminating all mandates so people could get basic health insurance at a reasonable cost.

 

[jwashu]

Yes because mental illness isn’t really illness… right?

Is that congressional person suggesting that autism isn’t “real” either, if so I’m sure there are a lot of parents that would like to discuss that.

This is the problem with health care. It’s not special interest groups it’s people wanting to decide what they believe is important which is usually described as the number of people who have it.

I pray that the first thing Obama gets done is a National Health care plan.

 

[timotheos]

Root cause:

Not enough people eating an apple a day.

I’m only half joking. Medical care is just another commodity, like groceries, or the barbershop. People should dislike going to the doctor, so much that they start taking care of their own health.

But my totally serious answer - is that it is a very complicated and multifactorial problem. But in general, there is a common self-serving thread running through all of the players - hospitals, practitioners, patients, drug companies, researchers, government, medical equipment companies, lawyers, etc; this self-serving undercurrent is, I believe, ultimately responsible.

-Tim

 

[T.A.Stobie_SFO]

Another problem is the lack of automated sharing of medical information among doctors and hospitals.

This results in excessive form filling out by patients who generally do not know their full medical history, lack of information provided to some medical professionals, redundant tests, and decision-making based on incomplete data and sometimes results in poor decisions based on the total facts.

 

[twk001]

i’m a simple gal, but also a nurse… one of the things that irks me the most is seeing my patients come into the office for their defibrillator checks and ask for drug samples. don’t get me wrong, i’m all about the samples, but PLEASE. why do these drug companies continue to manufacture drugs that the patients can’t afford? many of the docs are shmoozed almost daily with lunches, dinners, all sorts of “necessary” meetings from the drug reps to convince these docs to prescribe drugs that have been out for years and years. HELLO!!! they already prescribe them. get real. some of these drug company high-ups should live in the shoes of some of my patients for a while. they’d get a clue. twk

 

[puzzleannie]

I cannot buy health insurance at any price on the open market, which means I have to work until I turn 65, no matter what turn my health takes, and if I get fired or laid off, have to come up with money for cobra, but after 18 months w/o a job, will be travelling to Mexico for health care services.

I have been reflecting on Sen George Humphrey from Ohio, whose papers are in the WEstern Reserve Historical Society, and I had reason to consult them in grad school. He was a conservative of the old school and warned vehemently against what he saw as a threat posed by proposals, pushed mainly by lator unions, to make health care insurance a standard benefit for workers. He had a lot of anti-union bombast typical of the period, but he did warn that once health care insurance became a benefit associated with work, that those not employed, or not-employed in industries that mandated this benefit, would be shut out of the health care system. Prophetic IMO.