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Healthcare profiteering - rip off in plain sight.

bomberfox said:
Normally drugs are created through public/private partnerships with pharmaceutical companies and research teams at universities. There may not be an exactly defined amount but that is ok, sometimes we need to work with that. I would personally prefer medicine be a public service much like the fire department, not so much driven by profit. Public funding can go into medical research where discoveries can be made in a cooperative approach. Currently patents in medicine do not work so well in encouraging innovation and the privilege in medicine does not benefit consumers.
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The reason there is medicine is a mess is insurance. Make hospitals and doctors compete on the open market and things will get better and cheaper. As for medication putting it in the hands of the govt would be an utter disaster.
 
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For profit healthcare puts profits before healthcare
 
Ignatius said:
The reason there is medicine is a mess is insurance. Make hospitals and doctors compete on the open market and things will get better and cheaper. As for medication putting it in the hands of the govt would be an utter disaster.
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The only way i see of fixing the insurance problem is going towards a universal coverage which there are many different models we can choose from. Universal coverage can take insurance out of the hands of bosses and remove the fear that comes with changing jobs allowing more robust employment transitions. I prefer transitioning towards a public model of coverage for everyone and remove parasitic health insurance companies but barring that, open enrollment for all in the public system while still allowing other forms. The French model seems to be good because even the non state owned systems are closer to credit unions in setup and function.
 
Jonsa said:
you should have read the article. That 1.6 billion is the amount that Teamhealth billed. Calculate that profit.
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The graph shows what they billed.. BUT DID NOT COLLECT.

The graph shows they basically only made 10% profit.
 
Jonsa said:
wasn't collected means written off, which reduces income which avoids taxes. Brilliant plunder.
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No..its not a brilliant blunder.. it means money they did not take in.
 
Jonsa said:
The "uncollected" is where the gold for the "shareholders" is. Lovely inflated losses. as to where the limit is, I don't know, but I do know that 700% markups as pricing benchmarks is friggin' outrageous any way you want to slice it. Particularly when you have the payee by the balls like every ER dept has.
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No..there is no gold there. Its uncollected.. which means they did not get it. And obviously they don't have the payees by the balls.. otherwise they wouldn't have that much not being collected.

I think you aren't understanding your own graph.
 
bomberfox said:
Ehhh im not quite there but people should keep in mind that abusing their economic power to exploit people will lead to the unnecessary deaths of many people. Its a form of violence to extort people.
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Ignatius said:
That's absurd. Competition created lower prices and higher quality. Two examples are plastic surgery and lasik eye surgery.
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Then why does Canada pay less of its GDP towards health care than the US does?
 
Ignatius said:
That's absurd. Competition created lower prices and higher quality. Two examples are plastic surgery and lasik eye surgery.
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Cosmetics tend to not be as much of a patent troll industry as pharmaceuticals. Their iron grip literally kills people and we pay for their research.
 
bomberfox said:
Cosmetics tend to not be as much of a patent troll industry as pharmaceuticals. Their iron grip literally kills people and we pay for their research.
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The lack of insurance is why those 2 medical disciplines are cheaper and better quality
 
Ignatius said:
Canadas population is 1/10 that of the US. Stop the silliness
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We certainly have enough resources and it would have helped a great deal with covid 19 if for profit insurance companies didnt blithely deny covering testing and treatment
 
Ignatius said:
Can you show why "profit"is a problem?
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No, because I specifically said the problem is wider than that. I mentioned the for-profit healthcare system in the US causing problems but that isn't because profit in itself is bad, only that the systems surrounding it can lead to outcomes that don't correctly prioritise the best treatment for patients and the best environment for staff to provide that treatment.

For-profit healthcare can also open up opportunities for better care too, but only if it is probably structured, managed and regulated. This specific issue, resulting from how these doctors are employed, paid and funded, appears to be the result of a failure to implement suitable structures, management and regulation.
 
HonestJoe said:
No, because I specifically said the problem is wider than that. I mentioned the for-profit healthcare system in the US causing problems but that isn't because profit in itself is bad, only that the systems surrounding it can lead to outcomes that don't correctly prioritise the best treatment for patients and the best environment for staff to provide that treatment.

For-profit healthcare can also open up opportunities for better care too, but only if it is probably structured, managed and regulated. This specific issue, resulting from how these doctors are employed, paid and funded, appears to be the result of a failure to implement suitable structures, management and regulation.
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That's because of insurance.

What does "probably(sic) structured managed and regulated" mean? Where you wrote "probably" did you mean properly?
 
bomberfox said:
We certainly have enough resources and it would have helped a great deal with covid 19 if for profit insurance companies didnt blithely deny covering testing and treatment
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How would it have helped? Why should insurance companies pay for it? Insurance companies are the problem with healthcare in America.
 
HonestJoe said:
For-profit healthcare can also open up opportunities for better care too, but only if it is probably structured, managed and regulated.
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Which just means you want the healthcare industry to be controlled, or at least partially controlled, by politics.

That's precisely what has given us the mess we have now.
 
Ignatius said:
That's because of insurance.
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It isn't that simple - nothing in this area is, that's part of the problem. Healthcare is a complex set of interrelated systems regardless of how it is funded. No system anywhere in the world is anywhere close to perfect, though none of the systems in industrialised nations are any kind of disaster either.

Ignatius said:
What does "probably(sic) structured managed and regulated" mean? Where you wrote "probably" did you mean properly?
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Yes. Spell check hates me. :cool:
 
HonestJoe said:
It isn't that simple - nothing in this area is, that's part of the problem. Healthcare is a complex set of interrelated systems regardless of how it is funded. No system anywhere in the world is anywhere close to perfect, though none of the systems in industrialised nations are any kind of disaster either.

Yes. Spell check hates me. :cool:
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Get rid of insurance and it gets much easier to navigate as we have seen with plastic and lasik surgeries. When you go to the doctor or hospital with insurance who is the customer?

Lol yes I understand about spell check. But what did you mean by the statement?
 
Ignatius said:
How would it have helped? Why should insurance companies pay for it? Insurance companies are the problem with healthcare in America.
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Its time for single payer
 
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