Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

...
I'd bet that most of the problems they treated were not serious enough to compel the patient to make the effort to go to the ER...

Good. ER is the most expensive care there is. Just getting people who use the ER as their primary care physician to go to a real PCP would save loads of money.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by jinx

Pharmaceutical companies make billions in profits ever year. Start there if you want to lay the blame of the uninsured at someone's feet - not mine.

I have no problem with everyone having access to a basic standard of care, it makes sense all around. But I think as long as people to can choose to be professional students, or have their own struggling business instead of working for the man, or take time off to travel, paint, discover themselves etc... they shouldn't have the right to take more from me to cover their ass when they get sick or hurt.

If everyone pays in, the same amount per human - then I'm all for it.

If it's team politics and those who support 'the war' are expected to pay more because they go to work and collect a bigger paycheck - fuck that.

Why is it that one fuckin aspirin tablet in a hospital costs $27.00, yet I can buy a bottle of 100 of them at less than 10 cents a piece? Why is it that Afrin costs over $150 for a bottle in a hospital, whereas at Walmart its only $1.98.

Rectify the ridiculous costs of the care and the insurance will no longer be a problem.

Its just too easy to blame the big evil Insurance companies while the Pharma Co's are lining your politicians pockets.

: onrant: Our current leader was elected primarily on the premise of taking care of the needs of this country - specifically the needs of the lower classes - GREAT, I say. Problem is that the productive people are being screwed in the process - You cannot raise the latter by lowering the former. That doesn't work.

Yes this needs to be corrected, but they seem to be addressing the wrong end of this equation. I no longer wonder why - cuz its whats best for them - not us. : offrant:

[Shawnee123]

Its just too easy to blame the big evil Insurance companies while the Pharma Co's are lining your politicians pockets.

ORLY? I blame both the motherfuckers: all in line with greed greed greed. Y'all don't see that that is what is wrong in this country? Who's stupid now?

Whatever we do, let's make sure someone isn't getting health care. In fact, I think we should line the streets with dead people who couldn't afford insurance just to make a fucking point.

[classicman]

Huh? Perhaps you missed my point - There is plenty of blame to go around - don't get me wrong, but the insurance costs are simply a function of what the care costs. That has to be addressed first, doesn't it?

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by classicman

Why is it that one fuckin aspirin tablet in a hospital costs $27.00, yet I can buy a bottle of 100 of them at less than 10 cents a piece?
...

You're not just paying for the pill. You're paying for a stocked, full service pharmacy, the person who gets the pill for you, the person who gives you the pill, prescribes the pill, bills your insurance company, cleans the floors, manages human resources for the hospital, the CEO, board members, and stockholders. You're even paying for the hospital picnic, advertizing, and support for the local girls' softball team. Sometimes a pill is not just a pill. There's certainly room to cut costs, though. Start with making all health-related companies not-for-profit.

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

... In fact, I think we should line the streets with dead people who couldn't afford insurance just to make a fucking point.

That would make the streets real bumpy, and they'd get smelly pretty quickly. Yuck!

[glatt]

As long as we are pointing fingers and talking about costs, it might be worthwhile to go back to the link that Undertoad posted back in post 152.

It shows that by far the greatest rates of waste in the US health care system are in insurance and administration of health care. Also, US doctors, especially specialists, are paid more than in any other Western nations. There are other areas, like prescription drugs, where costs are higher than they should be, but the insurance companies and overpaid doctors account for most of the high cost in our system.

This interactive graphic overview is pretty easy to understand and very informative.

[jinx]

What about expensive television advertising of "new" drugs that are just like the old drugs but with a brand new patent so they cost more? Shouldn't even be legal...

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

You're not just paying for the pill. ... Blah blah blah ...

Then give me the option to provide something as simple as this "pill" so it is just a pill- I don't want to support the local softball team et all. I just want a pill.

[classicman]

Woman gives birth on pavement 'after being refused ambulance'

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 9:56 PM on 17th August 2009
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A young mother gave birth on a pavement outside a hospital after she was told to make her own way there.

Mother-of-three Carmen Blake called her midwife to ask for an ambulance when she went into labour unexpectedly with her fourth child.

But the 27-year-old claims she was refused an ambulance and told to walk the 100m from her house in Leicester to the city's nearby Royal Infirmary.

She said: "I phoned up the Royal Infirmary, it's just across the road, and they said to go into a hot bath, and then to make my way over there.

"I went into the bath and realised she was going to come quickly. I didn't think I'd be able to make it out of the bath, so I phoned the maternity ward back and told them to get an ambulance out.

'They said they were not sending an ambulance and told me I had had nine months to sort out a lift.'

Today a spokeswoman for the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust said: 'We are disappointed that Ms Blake was not happy with the advice and care she received and will of course investigate any complaint.

'We are pleased that both Ms Blake and her daughter are well and healthy.'

No this is probably not typical, I hope not anyway, but I was just perusing the net on lunch and happened upon this article.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by classicman

Then give me the option to provide something as simple as this "pill" so it is just a pill- I don't want to support the local softball team et all. I just want a pill.

Get your wimpy post-op ass out of bed and go to Walmart and buy the pill? :p
Bring your own meds (BYOM)?
Make hospitals not-for-profit, and regulate that they can't spend money on things like softball teams?

What ideas do you have?

[classicman]

Yeh - that coming form one of those "overpaid" docs...

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

What ideas do you have?

If you had better glasses - you'd have read them.

[richlevy]

Remember this one? I'm still appalled. I don't think I've heard a horror story about UK healthcare that matches this one.

Edith Isabel Rodriguez, 43, died of a perforated bowel on May 9 at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital. Her death was ruled accidental by the Los Angeles County coroner's office.Relatives said she was bleeding from the mouth and writhing in pain for 45 minutes. Experts have said Rodriguez could have survived had she been treated early enough. The head of the county's Department of Health Services, which oversees the facility, has called her death "inexcusable."

County officials said Rodriguez's last minutes were caught on tape by a hospital security camera, but officials are refusing to release that video."A dozen people were in the room and nobody got up to help. The janitors came over to help clean the vomit of the victim. They did a diligent job cleaning up the vomit, but they didn't take one look at her. It's a complete moral human breakdown that I cannot understand," said L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times' Web site posted audio from two 911 calls that were released by the county Sheriff's Department under the newspaper's California Public Records Act request.In them, callers pleaded for help but were referred to hospital staff instead.A call to a sheriff's spokesman seeking comment was not immediately returned Tuesday.Rodriguez's boyfriend, Jose Prado, used a pay phone outside the hospital to call 911 at 1:43 a.m.

[classicman]

That doesn't count Rich -That happened in LA!

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by glatt

As long as we are pointing fingers and talking about costs, it might be worthwhile to go back to the link that Undertoad posted back in post 152.

It shows that by far the greatest rates of waste in the US health care system are in insurance and administration of health care. Also, US doctors, especially specialists, are paid more than in any other Western nations. There are other areas, like prescription drugs, where costs are higher than they should be, but the insurance companies and overpaid doctors account for most of the high cost in our system.

This interactive graphic overview is pretty easy to understand and very informative.

I'm an occasional visitor to this thread, and a seagull poster (swoop in, skwawk a bit, and flap off...), but ...

according to some things I saw on TV a while back, health care in the US is so much more expensive than elswhere because of (a) insurance costs, (b) excessive testing for every conceivable possible cause of the symptoms, no matter how unlikely, and (c) adminstration.

Why is this? Lawyers. Litigousness. Suing the hospital and the doctor if anything goes wrong. Getting payouts that make the rest of the world gape in awe. Increasing the cost of insurance for the doctors, and causing the docs to do every imaginable test.

Sure, I want doctors to be prudent, and do *appropriate* tests before making a diagnosis. The judgement call is on what counts as appropriate. The opinion of the program I saw is that US doctors, to cover their backs liability-wise, have to do far more tests than anyone else would consider appropriate. It is a risk balancing act - do you spend $800 on a test for a disease if there is a 1 in 10,000 chance the patient has it? IMHO, the US has gone too far towards caution.

There is also administration. In Taiwan, there is a single, govenrment run health fund - everyone has their computerised card - they spend a tad over 1% (yes, ONE PERCENT) of their total health budget on administration. This was by far the best in the world, but the US was among the worst.


kthnxbai

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