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From the Economist: Health care costs - An arm and a leg

Lafayette

Lafayette

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From here: Health Care Costs - An arm and a leg, excerpt:


Even as the number of people without insurance has fallen, the proportion of Americans who struggle to pay for treatment has hardly budged. In February of this year, 29% of people said they or a family member had struggled to pay a medical bill, according to a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation; in March 2010, 30% said the same thing. About 60% of the strugglers in the latest poll had used up most or all of their savings; nearly three-quarters had cut back spending on food, clothes and basic household items.

Strikingly, 30% of people with health insurance reported struggling—not much lower than the 41% without insurance who did so (retired people, who are covered by a government scheme, fared better: only 20% said they struggled).
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One reason is that insurers have been passing on more medical charges to patients. A typical insurance plan has a long list of things for which patients must pay a share. In high-deductible plans, which are increasingly popular, families must pay at least $2,600 before any insurance kicks in. Last year a quarter of employers, through whom most Americans get health insurance, offered only high-deductible plans. Some two-fifths plan to do so in the next three years.

Insurance can be alarmingly patchy. A surgeon who stitches up a patient rushed to the emergency room may not be covered by the patient’s health insurance, even when the procedure takes place at a hospital where a stay would be covered. A survey in 2015 found that a third of Americans with private insurance had received such surprise bills, often from an anaesthetist or another doctor.

Patients often do not help themselves even when they can. Only half of Americans have tried to find out what they would be charged before seeking care, according to a recent survey by Public Agenda, a think-tank. Most people think, wrongly, that all doctors and hospitals charge about the same.

In the public’s defence, health plans are opaque and complicated. Many people do not know what type of plan they have because so many have cryptic names, says Larry Levitt at the Kaiser Family Foundation. Working out costs in advance is so tricky that the University of New Hampshire has started offering education on health-care literacy. David Schleifer, who led the Public Agenda survey, says the task can be mind-boggling. To find out the cost of a hernia operation, he had to peruse the list on the insurer’s website, call the hospital to ask about the specific billing codes for the procedure and then call the insurer to check the patient’s payment for those codes. Those who lack his nous must hope that their health holds.
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Can one of the richest countries on earth not afford "Affordable HealthCare". That is, one provided by a National Health System (NHS)?

Most developed countries have an NHS - all of Europe has one and even Canada! The US has only private-insurance healthcare.

THE SAD FACTS

Unless of course, you don't care about living longer? Or the fact that US health-care is a colossal rip-off, twice the individual cost of most other developed countries? See here:
ftotHealthExp_pC_USD_long-485x550.png
 
Yet another claim that because X policy works well in country Y that it would do so in the US. Using that "logic" then explain why the US "single payer" K-12 public education system is more expensive than most other OCED nations yet provides no better outcome. Is it really a good idea to have a goal of keeping folks alive (regardless of the quality of that life) for as many years as possible after they retire? One obvious way to reduce (medical?) care costs is to have families provide food, clothing and shelter to their elderly relatives rather than to institutionalize them and thus consider these costs to be "medical care".

https://www.payingforseniorcare.com/financial-assistance/texas.html
 
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IMO the reason American health costs are so high is simple greed on the part of the American Healthcare Industry.

Much like the Military-Industrial Complex we all know and love, the American Healthcare Industry comprised of Big Pharma, The America Medical Association, and Health Insurance work hand in hand to keep uninsured costs high. They all profit more under the Insurance scam than they would absent the existence of Insurance.

Doctor's and Big Pharma know that without the existence of health insurance they would go out of business trying to charge the exorbitant fees they seek from the uninsured patient. Insurance companies pay a fraction of costs currently demanded for medication and medical treatment from the uninsured. But those payments when taking into account the large numbers of patients perforce covered and thereby more apt to seek care is greater than those businesses could expect if insurance did not exist and they only had to depend on what a free-market would bear.

Meanwhile the Insurance companies profits, as always, come from "spreading the risks" by semi-annual increases of rates on their customers to absorb the costs of those who use the insurance. Profits seldom drop under this type of scam.
 
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The easiest way to increase our life expectancy is to not be the fattest country in the world.
 
Captain Adverse said:
IMO the reason American health costs are so high is simple greed on the part of the American Healthcare Industry.

Much like the Military-Industrial Complex we all know and love, the American Healthcare Industry comprised of Big Pharma, The America Medical Association, and Health Insurance work hand in hand to keep uninsured costs high. They all profit more under the Insurance scam than they would absent the existence of Insurance.

Doctor's and Big Pharma know that without the existence of health insurance they would go out of business trying to charge the exorbitant fees they seek from the uninsured patient. Insurance companies pay a fraction of costs currently demanded for medication and medical treatment from the uninsured. But those payments when taking into account the large numbers of patients perforce covered and thereby more apt to seek care is greater than those businesses could expect if insurance did not exist and they only had to depend on what a free-market would bear.

Meanwhile the Insurance companies profits, as always, come from "spreading the risks" by semi-annual increases of rates on their customers to absorb the costs of those who use the insurance. Profits seldom drop under this type of scam.
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Well.. if you want a healthcare system like we had in the early 1900's... when we were paid in chickens.. then I guess your system works.

But the greatest advancements in healthcare came about in the last century because of insurance.. because it pairs the few people that really need healthcare with the money to pay for it. And that has paid for all the research and development, skills acquisition and availability of relatively rare procedures.
 
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