Quote:
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
flap flap flap