Our health care system needs to be completely destroyed and rebuilt

[Randomguy]

I hate this kind of stuff:

They Want It to Be Secret: How a Common Blood Test Can Cost $11 or Almost $1,000

Huge price discrepancies like that are unimaginable in other industries. Also unusual: not knowing the fee ahead of time.

By Margot Sanger-Katz

• April 30, 2019
• • It’s one of the most common tests in medicine, and it is performed millions of times a year around the country. Should a metabolic blood panel test cost $11 or $952?

Both of these are real, negotiated prices, paid by health insurance companies to laboratories in Jackson, Miss., and El Paso in 2016. New data, analyzing the health insurance claims of 34 million Americans covered by large commercial insurance companies, shows that enormous swings in price for identical services are common in health care. In just one market — Tampa, Fla. — the most expensive blood test costs 40 times as much as the least expensive one.

If you’re a patient seeking a metabolic blood panel, good luck finding out what it will cost. Although hospitals are now required to publish a list of the prices they would like patients to pay for their services, the amounts that medical providers actually agree to accept from insurance companies tend to remain closely held secrets. Some insurance companies provide consumers with tools to help steer them away from the $450 test, but in many cases you won’t know the price your insurance company agreed to until you get the bill. If you have an insurance deductible, a $400 — or even a $200 — bill for a blood test can be an unpleasant surprise.

Outside of health care, a swing of prices as huge as the one for blood tests in Tampa is unheard-of. Recent studies of the retail prices ofketchup and drywall, for example, showed much less variation. A bottle of Heinz ketchup in the most expensive store in a given market could cost six times as much as it would in the least expensive store. But most bottles of ketchup tended to cost around the same. And, in every case, you would know the price of your ketchup before buying it.

ADVERTISEMENT“It’s shocking,” said Amanda Starc, an associate professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern, who has studied the issue. “The variation in prices in health care is much greater than we see in other inIn some cities, the blood test prices look more like the prices for consumer goods. Most tests in Baltimore cost around $30. Most in Portland, Ore., cost around $20. But if you live in Miami or Los Angeles, the price becomes much harder to predict.

Hospitals and insurers negotiate over prices in private, and they don’t want competitors to know about the deals they’ve been able to cut. The data in this article comes from the Health Care Cost Institute, which pools bills from three large insurance companies. (Even the institute can’t say which insurers and providers are attached to the different prices, and it has eliminated certain markets with less competition where it might be easy to guess.)

In markets where there is a dominant hospital chain, or a powerful hospital that many patients insist on using, insurers tend to face high prices, with less leverage to bargain the hospitals down. Martin Gaynor, a professor of health economics at Carnegie Mellon University, was a co-author of a recent study showing that in markets where fewer hospitals competed for patients, the hospitals tended to be paid more.

“Some of these really simple diagnostic tests — what the heck?” Mr. Gaynor said. “It does mean, in a sense, the market is broken in terms of problems with market power.”

[Green Grass]

9 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

Huge price discrepancies like that are unimaginable in other industries. Also unusual: not knowing the fee ahead of time.

A free market fixes these things quite quickly and efficiently.  

[Parr8hed]

Just now, Goat Geddah said:

A free market fixes these things quite quickly and efficiently.  

agreed.

[Parr8hed]

Health care is going to be the downfall of our society.  

[Indy]

Considering what it was less than a decade ago, I'd say it already has been completely destroyed.

[Randomguy]

10 minutes ago, Goat Geddah said:

A free market fixes these things quite quickly and efficiently.  

I would tend to agree in theory, but in practice you can see hospital chains driving out competition and driving up prices.  Monopolies are not good, and having just a couple of big players invites collusion at the very least.

At what point do you break up the massive companies that own markets?  How do you prevent monopolies while still encouraging growth?  Functional monopolies are the end result in some markets as companies with the most resources use them to lock anyone else out they can.  Some industries are so costly to enter that in a practical sense, nobody can jump into the fray to equalize things.

[Randomguy]

3 minutes ago, Indy said:

Considering what it was less than a decade ago, I'd say it already has been completely destroyed.

?

[Green Grass]

7 minutes ago, Parr8hed said:

Health care is going to be the downfall of our society.  

It's a race.  Between the HC system and illegal/illicit dangerous drugs.

[Parr8hed]

Just now, Goat Geddah said:

It's a race.  Between the HC system and illegal/illicit dangerous drugs.

I feel like our healthcare is responsible for at least some of our drug problem.  

[Green Grass]

1 minute ago, Randomguy said:

I would tend to agree in theory, but in practice you can see hospital chains driving out competition and driving up prices.  Monopolies are not good, and having just a couple of big players invites collusion at the very least.

At what point do you break up the massive companies that own markets?  How do you prevent monopolies while still encouraging growth?  Functional monopolies the end result in some markets as companies with the most resources use them to lock anyone else out they can.  Some industries are so costly to enter that in a practical sense, nobody can jump into the fray to equalize things.

I'll answer indirectly.  Look at the banking industry.  Huge companies, (Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase, etc.) always mergers and acquisitions.  However, there are always start up small banks popping up regularly.  So, small and large can co-exist...and the small, in hte case of banking will ultimately get acquired by the big, only to have  a new small bank start it all over again.

The more the government is involved the more fucked up it's going to be.  Health care industry has no chance of being efficient.

[maddmaxx ★]

37 minutes ago, Goat Geddah said:

A free market fixes these things quite quickly and efficiently.  

I contest that health care is never going to be a free market as it sells a product that the consumer cannot walk away from.  You buy it or you die.  Ask the free market folks attempting to purchase insulin or epipens.  When the price is raised 400% because the company can people still have to pay for it.

If this weren't true than people wouldn't be getting the same medicine for considerably less in other countries.

[bikeman564™]

7 minutes ago, Goat Geddah said:

The more the government is involved the more fucked up it's going to be. 

thank you

[Razors Edge ★]

13 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

I contest that health care is never going to be a free market

And just so everyone knows, anyone here can go out and buy "health care" on the free market - in every corner of the US - right now (and same as 10 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago).  

[Randomguy]

1 minute ago, Goat Geddah said:

It's a race.  Between the HC system and illegal/illicit dangerous drugs.

Drugs will never be the downfall of society, it will always be something else.  Drugs are a symptom of worse issues, not a cause on a wider scale.

 

13 minutes ago, Goat Geddah said:

I'll answer indirectly.  Look at the banking industry.  Huge companies, (Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase, etc.) always mergers and acquisitions.  However, there are always start up small banks popping up regularly.  So, small and large can co-exist...and the small, in hte case of banking will ultimately get acquired by the big, only to have  a new small bank start it all over again.

The more the government is involved the more fucked up it's going to be.  Health care industry has no chance of being efficient.

It is a fine line.  Who is going to start a hospital?  You just can't go and start a mom and pop hospital, even a little one is going to cost millions to get going.  If you own your market, it would take decades for a correction, if ever.   It is really fucked when companies run amok, just as it is when governments do.

Health is an area where there does need to be clear law and oversight with teeth.  More people are ruined by healthcare fuckery in one year than drugs have in the entire history of drugs, current oxy epidemic included.  Big public companies  eventually will screw over anyone and anything to any extent allowed by law.  They surely don't go into with that mindset, but their responsibility to the shareholders ensures this at some point.  If there is no enforcement, they will go way over what is allowed, and keep going and going and going.  

[Randomguy]

15 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

And just so everyone knows, anyone here can go out and buy "health care" on the free market - in every corner of the US - right now (and same as 10 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago).  

Right, and it is real easy to get good insurance at a reasonable price no matter what.    Max is right, it will not be a free market.  It ought to be available to all at one price, it is clear and only someone without morals or common sense would claim otherwise.

[Green Grass]

5 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

Health is an area where there does need to be clear law and oversight with teeth.

As is the case with banking.  Clear, well defined, SENSIBLE, laws, rules and oversight.  That is the legitimate function of government.  

[MickinMD ★]

Price discrepancies hit those without insurance the most.

A while back, my PCP added a Vitamin D test to the other 12 tests in my every-3-month diabetic blood tests.

The lab got my BCBS ID number wrong for that one test alone. and it's computer sent me a bill for $256.  BCBS paid for my other tests - I have no copays on tests.

A 60 second phone call straightened out the problem and soon I got an Explanation of Benefits letter from BCBS saying it had paid the lab in-full for the Vitamin D test.

But the lab didn't charge BCBS the $256 it billed me.  It charged BCBS $15!

 

[maddmaxx ★]

3 minutes ago, MickinMD said:

Price discrepancies hit those without insurance the most.

A while back, my PCP added a Vitamin D test to the other 12 tests in my every-3-month diabetic blood tests.

The lab got my BCBS ID number wrong for that one test alone. and it's computer sent me a bill for $256.  BCBS paid for my other tests - I have no copays on tests.

A 60 second phone call straightened out the problem and soon I got an Explanation of Benefits letter from BCBS saying it had paid the lab in-full for the Vitamin D test.

But the lab didn't charge BCBS the $256 it billed me.  It charged BCBS $15!

 

And they made a profit at $15. (else you think they work under cost for the insurance companies)  There's a rip off on the grandest scale going on and no one is willing to stop it.  I suspect that congress is in the pockets of big pharma.

It's quite possibly the single largest rip off going on in the nation.

[MickinMD ★]

1 hour ago, Goat Geddah said:

A free market fixes these things quite quickly and efficiently.  

No it doesn't in the case of health care where you're potentially holding someone's health hostage.

A free market is based on people having a choice of who they wish to buy from and to choose not to buy if they don't get the right price.  That doesn't work with health.

That fact is recognized even in capitalist countries like Japan and Switzerland, where there is no government healthcare, all is 100% private, yet health insurance companies are required to be non-profits and health service charges are regulated by commissions.

 

[Razors Edge ★]

29 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

Right, and it is real easy to get good insurance at a reasonable price no matter what.  

You are confusing "health insurance" with "health care".  You can go to ANY doctor and pay for service - out of pocket. Period. That's health care.  Your beef is with health INSURANCE and the impact it has on prices - variations, fluctuations, idiosyncrasies, etc.

If you are wealthy and "self-insured", health care works pretty darn well in America.  

[maddmaxx ★]

5 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

You are confusing "health insurance" with "health care".  You can go to ANY doctor and pay for service - out of pocket. Period. That's health care.  Your beef is with health INSURANCE and the impact it has on prices - variations, fluctuations, idiosyncrasies, etc.

If you are wealthy and "self-insured", health care works pretty darn well in America.  

Again I have to disagree.  We have some of the best trauma and emergency services in the world yet we can't convince people to take care of themselves in any meaningful way.  Health care is not just replacing your ravaged heart after you have poisoned it for most of your life.

[Indy]

1 hour ago, Randomguy said:

?

When my son was born, I walked out of the hospital owing basically nothing.  With my daughter, big bill from being born, two more big bills for two surgeries, and this summer, possibly another big bill to pay.

8 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

You are confusing "health insurance" with "health care".  You can go to ANY doctor and pay for service - out of pocket. Period. That's health care.  Your beef is with health INSURANCE and the impact it has on prices - variations, fluctuations, idiosyncrasies, etc.

If you are wealthy and "self-insured", health care works pretty darn well in America.  

Yes, my daughter's care has all been really good and man have I paid for it.  So definitely no issue with the health care, but I guess if you get what you pay for, she's getting first rate care.

[Randomguy]

3 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

You are confusing "health insurance" with "health care".  You can go to ANY doctor and pay for service - out of pocket. Period. That's health care.  Your beef is with health INSURANCE and the impact it has on prices - variations, fluctuations, idiosyncrasies, etc.

If you are wealthy and "self-insured", health care works pretty darn well in America.  

If you don't have health insurance, you will be billed the highest prices the provider thinks they can get from you, whatever price they make up after services are rendered.  If they told you a price before, they can tell you a different one after if you have no proof, all legal-like. 

Health insurance is one problem, health providers are another.  If you are in the 1% who owns half of all assets worldwide, then yeah, I imagine health care is great anywhere.  

[Razors Edge ★]

18 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

Again I have to disagree.  We have some of the best trauma and emergency services in the world yet we can't convince people to take care of themselves in any meaningful way.  Health care is not just replacing your ravaged heart after you have poisoned it for most of your life.

On this point, you are CORRECT!  Holistic health care is more than just acute care.

But from the acute side of things, assuming you are loaded with cash, we have the best health care in the world.

[Randomguy]

2 minutes ago, Indy said:

When my son was born, I walked out of the hospital owing basically nothing.  With my daughter, big bill from being born, two more big bills for two surgeries, and this summer, possibly another big bill to pay.

Yes, my daughter's care has all been really good and man have I paid for it.  So definitely no issue with the health care, but I guess if you get what you pay for, she's getting first rate care.

Insurance companies will consolidate, be bought out, change management constantly.  What was good insurance 10 years ago is gone, there is only right now.  Right now they have found a way to shift more of the cost of doing business on the insured.  You are getting worse coverage for more money is what is happening, and it will keep happening. 

When will they say some necessary surgeries are "elective"?  If it is fixing something that they don't want to pay for, they just call that good business to not pay for it, screw you, all very republican-like.  "Hey, it just isn't profitable to pay for your expensive offspring, so fuck you and your extended family and your hopes for financial stability, we have our CEO's summer houses, private plane, and yachts to think about."  I know it is easy to slam the CEO, you can substitute shareholders in there instead.  They can change up coverage when it appeals to them, and sure, your company can shop around for new insurance, but do you honestly think it would be better?  Do you think it will cost you less or more than you currently pay?

So yeah, it has been a massive problem for the lay people of the country and getting more massive every year, with no attempts or political will to solve.   The only administration not dickless enough to even try anything was Obama's administration, they found a way to ensure the average Joe could get insurance through the ACA.  The current administration doesn't care if the average Joe lives or dies and would love to see that gone, because poor sick people cause profits to dip more than dead people. 

[late]

2 hours ago, Goat Geddah said:

A free market fixes these things quite quickly and efficiently.  

Not in health care.

Time to do your homework.

[Randomguy]

23 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

Again I have to disagree.  We have some of the best trauma and emergency services in the world yet we can't convince people to take care of themselves in any meaningful way.  Health care is not just replacing your ravaged heart after you have poisoned it for most of your life.

Truish for some, but not for others.  I am sure vast numbers of people won't investigate a health issue because just checking into something is often unaffordable for the insured, just to try and figure out if something is wrong.  Little things blow into big things and you are screwed.  A lot of sick people just give up, which is pretty screwed up.

[Indy]

10 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

Insurance companies will consolidate, be bought out, change management constantly.  What was good insurance 10 years ago is gone, there is only right now.  Right now they have found a way to shift more of the cost of doing business on the insured.  You are getting worse coverage for more money is what is happening, and it will keep happening.  

When will they say some necessary surgeries are "elective"?  If it is fixing something that they don't want to pay for, they just call that good business to not pay for it, screw you, all very republican-like.  "Hey, it just isn't profitable to pay for your expensive offspring, so fuck you and your extended family and your hopes for financial stability, we have our CEO's summer houses, private plane, and yachts to think about."  I know it is easy to slam the CEO, you can substitute shareholders in there instead.  They can change up coverage when it appeals to them, and sure, your company can shop around for new insurance, but do you honestly think it would be better?  Do you think it will cost you less or more than you currently pay?

So yeah, it has been a massive problem for the lay people of the country and getting more massive every year, with no attempts or political will to solve.   The only administration not dickless enough to even try anything was Obama's administration, they found a way to ensure the average Joe could get insurance through the ACA.  The current administration doesn't care if the average Joe lives or dies and would love to see that gone, because poor sick people cause profits to dip more than dead people. 

Yeah, that administration is the one that completely screwed it up.  I had good insurance before then, but all the mandates it's added onto doctors and insurers killed everything.  If you had a good plan, the changes punished you for it because it added hefty taxes to what used to be good plans so people couldn't afford them anymore.  It's not that insurers suddenly started jacking up their rates, they were forced to because of short sighted legislation.

 

And this thread can be moved to P&R now.

[late]

We pay more, a lot more, and get less.

We pay over twice what Britain does, and their stats are similar to ours.

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/how-do-healthcare-prices-and-use-in-the-u-s-compare-to-other-countries/#item-on-average-other-wealthy-countries-spend-half-as-much-per-person-on-healthcare-than-the-u-s

The health care system is in crisis, and it's going to get worse.

Every country that can afford national health care, has it, in some fashion. Costa Rica is genuinely poor, but they have national health care, and considering their ability to pay, it's great, if basic.

Americans always want magic, or at least cute.

This is genuinely complicated, and cute won't cut the mustard. (And there is no magic fairy dust in economics)

[Indy]

2 minutes ago, late said:

We pay more, a lot more, and get less.

We pay over twice what Britain does, and their stats are similar to ours.

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/how-do-healthcare-prices-and-use-in-the-u-s-compare-to-other-countries/#item-on-average-other-wealthy-countries-spend-half-as-much-per-person-on-healthcare-than-the-u-s

The health care system is in crisis, and it's going to get worse.

Every country that can afford national health care, has it, in some fashion. Costa Rica is genuinely poor, but they have national health care, and considering their ability to pay, it's great, if basic.

Americans always want magic, or at least cute. 

This is genuinely complicated, and cute won't cut the mustard. (And there is no magic fairy dust in economics)

A lot of countries also don't have the wide open malpractice lawsuits we do, that has a big part in driving up our cost as the amount of insurance providers have to carry to protect themselves from lawsuits.  Fixing the lawsuit issue should be the first step in fixing the system, of course most of our legislators are former lawyers, so they have no interest in doing things that would effect their earning potential or that of their peers.

[maddmaxx ★]

9 minutes ago, Indy said:

Yeah, that administration is the one that completely screwed it up.  I had good insurance before then, but all the mandates it's added onto doctors and insurers killed everything.  If you had a good plan, the changes punished you for it because it added hefty taxes to what used to be good plans so people couldn't afford them anymore.  It's not that insurers suddenly started jacking up their rates, they were forced to because of short sighted legislation.

 

And this thread can be moved to P&R now.

The line graph of health care cost disagrees with any change in administrations affecting health care very much.  Overall it keeps going up at about the same rate no matter who is in office.

[Indy]

3 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

The line graph of health care cost disagrees with any change in administrations affecting health care very much.  Overall it keeps going up at about the same rate no matter who is in office. 

No it doesn't, because ACA which was supposed to fix the system has shown to do nothing but screw up insurance for those that had good company provided insurance.  That's a fact that many have witnessed.

[late]

2 minutes ago, Indy said:

No it doesn't, because ACA which was supposed to fix the system has shown to do nothing but screw up insurance for those that had good company provided insurance.  That's a fact that many have witnessed.

That's an oversimplification.

 

[Randomguy]

5 minutes ago, Indy said:

A lot of countries also don't have the wide open malpractice lawsuits we do, that has a big part in driving up our cost as the amount of insurance providers have to carry to protect themselves from lawsuits.  Fixing the lawsuit issue should be the first step in fixing the system, of course most of our legislators are former lawyers, so they have no interest in doing things that would effect their earning potential or that of their peers.

Hmm, common sense laws are good, but what is the lawsuit issue exactly?  Doctors and hospitals don't like paying the premiums to cover themselves when they screw up, so they instead want to reduce your ability to sue them for THEIR mistakes?  They again want you to cover their asses for them.

The message they are paying to distribute is that the general population is out of control, not the people giving poor care, not the organizations that let bad practitioners practice.  "We are perfect, we don't make mistakes, it is people trying to take advantage of the system".  Also, "It is Obama's fault" bullshit messages that other people are paying to distribute to the masses for ingestion whole, without thought.

Consider who is feeding you the "fake news" you get all the time.

[Indy]

6 minutes ago, late said:

That's an oversimplification.

 

No, that would just be posting a graph with no information to explain or back it up. 

[Randomguy]

12 minutes ago, Indy said:

No it doesn't, because ACA which was supposed to fix the system has shown to do nothing but screw up insurance for those that had good company provided insurance.  That's a fact that many have witnessed.

Fix the system?  The system is this:

Everybody needs insurance in the USA.  If you aren't employed, you can't afford insurance.  If you are too sick to work, you will never get insurance.  If you have mental problems, nobody will employ you, so that means if you are nuts off your ass that you can go get guns and shoot people up because you aren't getting help and what do you have to lose?  If you have a preexisting condition, you can't be covered.  Oh wait, ACA did something about that, but someone decided to say that wasn't for the common good at all, and to tell you that ACA messed things up for you personally instead.

[maddmaxx ★]

11 minutes ago, Indy said:

No it doesn't, because ACA which was supposed to fix the system has shown to do nothing but screw up insurance for those that had good company provided insurance.  That's a fact that many have witnessed.

Put a ruler over the line and you will see that it varies very little from a straight growth line.  Facts matter.

[Indy]

5 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

Hmm, common sense laws are good, but what is the lawsuit issue exactly?  Doctors and hospitals don't like paying the premiums to cover themselves when they screw up, so they instead want to reduce your ability to sue them for THEIR mistakes?  They again want you to cover their asses for them.

The message they are paying to distribute is that the general population is out of control, not the people giving poor care, not the organizations that let bad practitioners practice.  "We are perfect, we don't make mistakes, it is people trying to take advantage of the system".  Also, "It is Obama's fault" bullshit messages that other people are paying to distribute to the masses for ingestion whole, without thought.

Consider who is feeding you the "fake news" you get all the time.

Common sense and laws never go hand and hand.  If you can't see how lawsuits and requisite insurance drives up medical cost, there is no helping you.  No "fake news" source feeds me information.

 

And you should try using some thought when you type up the message and look at the issue.

 

I'm out, maybe I'll be back next week, maybe I won't.

[late]

9 minutes ago, Indy said:

No, that would just be posting a graph with no information to explain or back it up. 

Overall, the cost goes steadily up. There's a number of reasons for that. I'll cover two today. One is technology. We keep designing new machines, and treatments, that cost a ton, but improve the quality of health care.

The second is demographic, the Boomers are getting old, and there are a LOT of us. Not only that, those people we save (that we didn't used to be able to save) live on to develop new health care problems.

Obamacare is complicated. It's helped millions to get health insurance for the first time, and it's improved the quality of coverage for millions more. But it's not perfect.

It doesn't deal with the root problems, so it leaves most of the room for improvement on the table, waiting.

[Randomguy]

52 minutes ago, Indy said:

If you can't see how lawsuits and requisite insurance drives up medical cost, there is no helping you.  No "fake news" source feeds me information.

Yes, it does drive the cost of insurance for the providers when people can sue them when THEY screw up.  Simple solution, don't drink before you operate.  Don't amputate the wrong leg.  Don't give the wrong medication.  Don't blame the victims instead of making them whole or, failing that, compensate them when you screwed them over.  The industry wants you to pay for care they will try to get out of paying for after they have your money, and wants you to pay when they screw up.  The whole time they are telling you that is someone else's fault, but they still want you to pay for it.  They want the reward, and do what it takes to get it.  At the same time, they want you to shoulder all the risk.

[Randomguy]

8 minutes ago, late said:

Overall, the cost goes steadily up. There's a number of reasons for that. I'll cover two today. One is technology. We keep designing new machines, and treatments, that cost a ton, but improve the quality of health care.

The second is demographic, the Boomers are getting old, and there are a LOT of us. Not only that, those people we save (that we didn't used to be able to save) live on to develop new health care problems.

Obamacare is complicated. It's helped millions to get health insurance for the first time, and it's improved the quality of coverage for millions more. But it's not perfect.

It doesn't deal with the root problems, so it leaves most of the room for improvement on the table, waiting.

This is all true.  Again, some administrations don't want to generate the political will to do something sensible, some administrations will do enough to pass incremental improvements, and non-thinking criminal ones try to make it more restrictive and less affordable.

[Dottleshead ★]

We rank 37th in the world out of all nations for quality health care.  Let that sink in.  We rank 37th in the world.  'Merica:  We are the greatest!

[Wilbur ★]

53 minutes ago, Indy said:

And this thread can be moved to P&R now.

Nooo!  We are mature enough not to destroy each other!   

[Dottleshead ★]

As soon as the free market advocates -- the same ones who live in fantasy land and live in a political vacuum as it pertains to healthcare --  can explain why our system ranks 37th in the world without a bunch of hocus pocus voodoo child shit, I'll listen.  I'm not against the free market by any means -- except when it comes to healthcare.  Count me as one of those who does not wish to be making profit off of the sick and dying.  Those touting free market health care system are either 'not old' or they are rich. If you're rich, then congratulations.  You live in a system that addresses your needs.  And if you're not old and you don't need it, don't worry, you will be and you will need it. And there's a good chance -- actually a great chance -- that the same system you praise now won't address your needs. 

I have friends who religiously praise the free market and vote for candidates that do.  Well, they are also the same ones who set up gofundme pages to pay for their sick children.  That's their idea of healthcare.  Gofundme sites.  Dodo brains clinging to a political belief while they ask for handouts from friends and strangers.  GMAFB. If you need a GoFundMe site as part of your healthcare policy and continue to vote for policies that support 'choice' -- go fuck yourself.

[Dottleshead ★]

26 minutes ago, wilbur said:

Nooo!  We are mature enough not to destroy each other!   

Too late.  I got a 'fuck yourself' statement in there,.

[Randomguy]

27 minutes ago, wilbur said:

Nooo!  We are mature enough not to destroy each other!   

Actually, I have already been as uppity as I was going to be.  I am now onto other important topics, which I am soon to post about.

[Dottleshead ★]

1 minute ago, Randomguy said:

Actually, I have already been as uppity as I was going to be.  I am now onto other important topics, which I am soon to post about.

Well, it was a good opportunity for me to use the 'fuck yourself' term.  Thanks.

[Longjohn ★]

5 hours ago, Parr8hed said:

I feel like our healthcare is responsible for at least some of our drug problem.  

And the government steps in and fucks it up even more. I was in the hospital, coded two times, my thinking was affected by my extreamly low numbers on my blood count. At discharge I was still in extreme pain. The discharge nurse told me I had a prescription in my discharge packet for pain management . I didn’t root through the discharge packet looking for it. I trusted her. On the way home my son stopped at the drug store to pick it up. It wasn’t in the packet. He brought in the discharge packet showing the name of the drug and the amount I was supposed to take. Drug store said that wasn’t the prescription. My son called the hospital, they said they had the prescription but forgot to put it in the folder. New laws prohibit them from faxing or calling in the prescription. It has to be on paper and hand delivered to the pharmacy. How the hell is that going to prevent drug abuse? I came home and took an ibuprofen. Screw them.

[sheep_herder ★]

Could a lot of this problem be, because many/most people in office (even the current ones) at the state and federal level live in a world quite different from the rest of us folks? Tough to relate when you will probably never be faced with problems of the common folks.

[Razors Edge ★]

I see the health care "system" as at least a five part constituency: 1) consumer, 2) government regulator & provider, 3) insurance companies ("non", "not", or "for" profit), 4) hospital systems (also "non", "not", or "for" profit), and 5) doctors/nurses/providers.  A sixth & seventh very related are "drug companies" and "pharmacies".

So, SEVEN important pieces in there - most completely driven by their own self interest - and the one folks love complaining about is, not surprising, "government". 

A nice exercise folks should take on (most won't, but I try  ) is to list those seven and go through ways they help and hinder an "individual's" health care and "societal" health care.  A nice little pros/cons list.  Then maybe revisit this topic with a broader perspective on it.

TLDR is gov't can be part of the problem and part of the solution, but the other 85% of the equation is often ignored.