I remember watching a John Stossel clip on Healthcare in America. He briefly made an argument that alluded to the elimination of health insurance entirely. The idea being, since people don't ultimately see the cost/effect of each individual drug or treatment because they only pay fixed premiums, it allows doctors and pharmaceutical companies the ability to charge whatever they want on their services/products.

I feel the best fix is to eliminate insurance covering so many things. I don't think doctor visits or any non-catastrophic emergency should be covered under health insurance. Instead of buying iPhone's/cable TV, new shoes, clothes, latest and greatest gadgets, it'd be great if people actually started placing in their budget health expenses. The health of a family should be one of the top if not the top priority after food and shelter. Americans in general feel entitled to have everything that their neighbor has and then when someone bad happens they play the "Woe is me, I'm sick and I can't afford anything". I'm not advocating the elimination of health insurance, I just feel it should only cover certain things(like cancer, surgeries, catastrophic events), not every boo-boo and cough that you get. Pay up!

sleeper;1056055 wrote:I remember watching a John Stossel clip on Healthcare in America. He briefly made an argument that alluded to the elimination of health insurance entirely. The idea being, since people don't ultimately see the cost/effect of each individual drug or treatment because they only pay fixed premiums, it allows doctors and pharmaceutical companies the ability to charge whatever they want on their services/products.

I feel the best fix is to eliminate insurance covering so many things. I don't think doctor visits or any non-catastrophic emergency should be covered under health insurance. Instead of buying iPhone's/cable TV, new shoes, clothes, latest and greatest gadgets, it'd be great if people actually started placing in their budget health expenses. The health of a family should be one of the top if not the top priority after food and shelter. Americans in general feel entitled to have everything that their neighbor has and then when someone bad happens they play the "Woe is me, I'm sick and I can't afford anything". I'm not advocating the elimination of health insurance, I just feel it should only cover certain things(like cancer, surgeries, catastrophic events), not every boo-boo and cough that you get. Pay up!

I agree with what you say. I would also like to see some way to make it easier for a patient to see what the costs for tests, office visits, etc. are before it is done. With many doctors, this information is difficult/impossible to obtain.

Al Bundy;1057308 wrote:I agree with what you say. I would also like to see some way to make it easier for a patient to see what the costs for tests, office visits, etc. are before it is done. With many doctors, this information is difficult/impossible to obtain.

Agreed. I'd love to see more price transparency.

Al Bundy;1057308 wrote:I agree with what you say. I would also like to see some way to make it easier for a patient to see what the costs for tests, office visits, etc. are before it is done. With many doctors, this information is difficult/impossible to obtain.

fan_from_texas;1057362 wrote:Agreed. I'd love to see more price transparency.

I was once involved in a claim audit and the price varies depending on a lot of factors. We had one dr who billed a patient ~$200 and another patient (from a different client in another network) ~$5500 for the exact same service. We've received a bill from a dr's office and when they found out what network the claim was being processed under they asked for the bill back because they billed that network at a different rate.

fan_from_texas;1055818 wrote:We've talked about this dozens of times, so it's probably not worth rehshing the whole argument. Malpractice insurance/claims aren't a big driver of costs. It's difficult to evaluate the impact of uneccessary tests, but comparing tort reform states vs others seems to indicate that it isn't a big deal. Id be happy to see data suggesting otherwise, but to date, what I've seen suggests that legal expenses are not a big cost driver.

Health care costs go up because (1) technological advance is expensive, (2) people view healthcare as a right and overuse it while socializing the burden, and (3) lots of money is spent on expensive end of life procedures.

We can reduce quality. We can increase out-of-pocket expenses so people are wiser about use. We can provide end of life counseling. Other than doing these things, I don't see how we're going to reign in costs.

I strongly disagree. Talk to a physician...any physician...and get the lowdown on his/her liability premiums....and the percent increase over the past 10 years or so. Practicing defensive medicine in order to keep Leo the lawyer away is a huge boondoggle which has increased health care costs for all of us...in an exponential manner.

This article is 9 years old...but things have not changed for the better. Doctors are businessmen too. Costs of doing business are always passed on to the customer.

http://www.aafp.org/fpm/2002/1000/p47.html

Obama care job killer and costly for less care

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/19/most-small-business-fear-health-care-law/?test=latestnews

ManO'War;1040333 wrote:And since when did it become the responsibility of the employer to provide health insurance!??!?

How about we all make our employers provide car insurance too...after all, we need our cars to get to work, and car/motorcycle insurance can get pretty expensive.

i don't, hope this helps.

FatHobbit;1055918 wrote:That makes sense.



My father in law is German. He had lung cancer and when he went to get treated they told him he could not have a room. He could have a bed in the hallway. I know it's only one case, but it's the only actual instance I know of someone in a foreign country needing serious health care.

During my extensive time in Winnipeg, Canada during 2010, I had extensive talks with a supervisor who was being treated for cancer. He didn't pay anything for his treatment, didn't wait at all for treatment and never had a single piece of paperwork. I understand that taxes are quite higher in Canada (provincial taxes and city taxes drive up the cost of everything; does a $25 12-pack of beer sound reasonable?), but the only wait they seemed to endure was for elective procedures.

It was almost funny, but an American co-worker had a perforated ulcer while there, which required emergency surgery. His insurance company in the U.S. denied coverage because he didn't have pre-approval. The Canadians went ballistic when they heard this. They are all under the impression that, since we pay so much for coverage, we should be covered for everything and don't have co-pays or deductibles. I took a newspaper ad from my local supermarket showing flu shots were available for $29. They laughed at me. Of course, when they saw the liquor advertisements they were shocked at how low the prices were.

stlouiedipalma;1063612 wrote:During my extensive time in Winnipeg, Canada during 2010, I had extensive talks with a supervisor who was being treated for cancer. He didn't pay anything for his treatment, didn't wait at all for treatment and never had a single piece of paperwork. I understand that taxes are quite higher in Canada (provincial taxes and city taxes drive up the cost of everything; does a $25 12-pack of beer sound reasonable?), but the only wait they seemed to endure was for elective procedures.

It was almost funny, but an American co-worker had a perforated ulcer while there, which required emergency surgery. His insurance company in the U.S. denied coverage because he didn't have pre-approval. The Canadians went ballistic when they heard this. They are all under the impression that, since we pay so much for coverage, we should be covered for everything and don't have co-pays or deductibles. I took a newspaper ad from my local supermarket showing flu shots were available for $29. They laughed at me. Of course, when they saw the liquor advertisements they were shocked at how low the prices were.

Why are you still living in this hell hole?

majorspark;1063645 wrote:Why are you still living in this hell hole?

Probably for the same reasons you and I are.

Footwedge;1063694 wrote:Probably for the same reasons you and I are.

I agree. Fantasy land does not exist. No matter how hard the social engineers try.