Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[TheMercenary]

It is designed to make insurance companies a boat load of money. That is the deal Obama made to get them to buy in.... In the end they will be rich.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

In the end they will be richer.

FTFY

[Happy Monkey]

Unless we can get past the cries of "socialism!" to single payer in the end.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Unless we can get past the cries of "socialism!" to single payer in the end.

That will never happen, any move towards single payer is a move towards "socialism", check the UK and ask them how that is working out for them. Or how about Canada?

[Happy Monkey]

Better than here, for both.

[TheMercenary]

You like failure?

[Happy Monkey]

If they're failing, I like their failure better than ours.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

If they're failing, I like their failure better than ours.

Cool! when are you moving! We really could use you to move off the dole over here. You know, make room for someone who really needs it...

[DanaC]

NHS works fine most of the time for most of the people.

Private care is available to those with the money and desire.

The only thing hurting the NHS right now are the current government's plans to privatise great chunks of it.

If someone is horrifically ill, it isn't going to bankrupt them as well as distress them.

[ZenGum]

Ditto here.

The flaw in our system is the (moderately right) coalition government we had a few years back made private health insurance tax deductible, to try to keep people off the public system. Not in itself a bad idea, but it costs far more in lost tax revenue than it saves in reduced public hospital costs. We would get more bang for our buck if we just gave the money to the hospitals. But you try cutting middle-class welfare and see what happens at the next election.

[TheMercenary]

HOW is that working out in Mass, right now? Report card anyone????

[BigV]

Why is our health care so expensive?

[glatt]

Originally Posted by BigV

Why is our health care so expensive?

We're at over 2500 posts in this thread. When the thread started, there was a good discussion about defining what was wrong with health care and where the outrageous costs come from.

The best information was in a chart posted, by UT of course, in post 152.

I'm not going to restate what that chart said, and more importantly the independent study behind UT's link, but lawyers and malpractice costs are responsible for only a small part of the outrageous costs. There are numerous factors, and the biggest was health care administration. This rings true. Go to any doctors office. There are usually like 5 people behind the desk for every doctor in the place. Too much paperwork.

[ZenGum]

Lawyers.


Seriously. Lots of tests you probably didn't need, bloated administration, overpriced proprietary drugs, and a metric shitload of malpractice insurance.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Lawyers.


Seriously. Lots of tests you probably didn't need, bloated administration, overpriced proprietary drugs, and a metric shitload of malpractice insurance.

This.

Also your healthcare is run on a for-profit model. At every level. Remove the profit margins from the various different stages of healthcare and you'll see costs drop.