Healthcare in the USA is a joke and I'll tell you why

[Lacius]

Eliminating the Chargemaster and the practices associated with compiling and enforcing it would certainly help a lot towards improving things. You know, provided something reasonable gets implemented in place, not that I'd trust that to happen right now.

This and Medicare for All would drastically improve the state of healthcare in the United States.

 

[Deleted User]

There are some important factors people either forget or fail to realize which helps to explain why a Nation such as the USA could never have Universal Healthcare.

1. Population Size
The USA Has a total Population of 329,000,0000+ which far exceeds the Population for any of the Average Nations within the list of all Nations with Universal Healthcare.

2. Quality of Care & Technology
The saying "You Get What You Pay For" very much applies to Health Care, contrary to popular belief; So much so in fact, that wealthier individuals in the very same nations listed, are known to partake in Medical Tourism to the US in order to take advantage of the higher Quality of Care. Suffice it to say, there is no way the USA could possibly afford to provide "Free" Healthcare at it's standard level for all 329,000,000+ Citizens (And counting, not even including Illegal Immigrants).

3. Military
Here is a hard truth, a Nation ceases to exist without a Military & Strong Borders; this is actually a large part of the reason the Soviet Union could not possibly keep up with us and ultimately fell 30+ Years ago. Incidentally, A lot of the nations on that list receive foreign aid from us, often in the form of Military aid, which allows them to divert the funds that would ordinarily go to their own Military towards programs like Universal Healthcare. There is simply no parallel where Nations contribute more than what we have provided them with, much less to the level sufficient enough to cover our entire Military's expenses (Which is necessarily is the largest in the world because of our significance as a Superpower Nation & to protect the Sheer Population & landmass size, etc). I would absolutely love to see the shit show that would ensue if America finally pulled foreign aid from these Nations, watch their attitude towards Socialism change overnight or continue down their path of self destruction & Get Swallowed up by a larger Nation (Probably Russia or China).

​

I could go on, but I think I covered the biggest points of contention regarding this issue & Hopefully I will have inspired at least one reader to be more critical instead of just accepting common Narratives.

 

[sarkwalvein]

To be honest, I really like the health care system in Germany.
I don't mean people shouldn't be charged in some way, but as I see it the American system has an opportunistic vulture behavior, more like Mafia/Yakuza/Loan sharks.

PS: also, I see in this conversations usually people that abuse the system are brought up, but to be honest that seems to me as a feeble excuse to justify the abuse, as the system usually abuses the people that do not abuse the system.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

There are some important factors people either forget or fail to realize which helps to explain why a Nation such as the USA could never have Universal Healthcare.

1. Population Size
The USA Has a total Population of 329,000,0000+ which far exceeds the Population for any of the Average Nations within the list of all Nations with Universal Healthcare.

2. Quality of Care & Technology
The saying "You Get What You Pay For" very much applies to Health Care, contrary to popular belief; So much so in fact, that wealthier individuals in the very same nations listed, are known to partake in Medical Tourism to the US in order to take advantage of the higher Quality of Care. Suffice it to say, there is no way the USA could possibly afford to provide "Free" Healthcare at it's standard level for all 329,000,000+ Citizens (And counting, not even including Illegal Immigrants).

3. Military
Here is a hard truth, a Nation ceases to exist without a Military & Strong Borders; this is actually a large part of the reason the Soviet Union could not possibly keep up with us and ultimately fell 30+ Years ago. Incidentally, A lot of the nations on that list receive foreign aid from us, often in the form of Military aid, which allows them to divert the funds that would ordinarily go to their own Military towards programs like Universal Healthcare. There is simply no parallel where Nations contribute more than what we have provided them with, much less to the level sufficient enough to cover our entire Military's expenses (Which is necessarily is the largest in the world because of our significance as a Superpower Nation & to protect the Sheer Population & landmass size, etc). I would absolutely love to see the shit show that would ensue if America finally pulled foreign aid from these Nations, watch their attitude towards Socialism change overnight or continue down their path of self destruction & Get Swallowed up by a larger Nation (Probably Russia or China).

​

I could go on, but I think I covered the biggest points of contention regarding this issue & Hopefully I will have inspired at least one reader to be more critical instead of just accepting common Narratives.

1. Take the way lower population per square meter, or quite bigger per capita GDP of America, and compare that to, say, the ones of Germany... what do they do with the excess resources in America then? (PS: Germany has around 83M people, that is around 4 times less than America, but it's land area is 27 times smaller)

2. I don't think the quality leaves anything to desire here.

3. I don't think that would make a better health system prohibitive, really.

 

[Foxi4]

The cost of health care is entirely the fault of the government meddling with what should be a free market issue, the biggest problem is the system of employer-funded insurance which removes bargaining power away from the individual for the sake of "collective bargaining" which doesn't make it more affordable, it makes it unaffordable for individual buyers. I wouldn't task my employer with picking my pizza toppings, let alone something as important as my health care plan. The ability to effectively shop around for health care was stripped away from individuals and instituted an insurance company hegemony - the reason why an ambulance ride costs four digits is precisely because the insurance company only pays for a small fraction of the service, which coincidentally is the actual cost for the health care provider, the same applies across the board. The whole system needs to be dismantled, there is no fixing it. Health care should be as simple as paying at the till on the way out, or just paying your company of choice a set amount monthly. The premise of health insurance is that, in the event of an emergency, your insurance company will pay less then you would out of pocket, it has to necessarily be a calculated bet, but the risk factor was removed from the equation, the insurer can't lose - they will have customers no matter what, so the incentive to compete is non-existent.

 

[IncredulousP]

Also people aren't going to treat themselves better or worse knowing they wouldn't have to pay for medical treatment. In fact, they would be unhealthier in the long run because of the lack of preventative treatment that comes with affordable healthcare. Not having adorable healthcare costs the average taxpayer more money than having it.

what should be a free market issue

Free market is idealized nonsense, especially when it comes to healthcare. It falls under the assumption that there will always be many choices that can be easily and equally be made, forcing each choice to outcompete each other by keeping prices low. In reality, people are going to need immediate medical attention closest to them, requiring products and services that are going to be owned and handled by only 1 or a small group of companies (re:oligopoly, monopoly). The "free-market" has always been a pipedream used to lead moderates into voting conservative, it doesn't work in a capitalist dog-eat-dog society of scarsity, the biggest contenders always come out on top as sole rulers.

 

[Lacius]

There are some important factors people either forget or fail to realize which helps to explain why a Nation such as the USA could never have Universal Healthcare.

1. Population Size
The USA Has a total Population of 329,000,0000+ which far exceeds the Population for any of the Average Nations within the list of all Nations with Universal Healthcare.

2. Quality of Care & Technology
The saying "You Get What You Pay For" very much applies to Health Care, contrary to popular belief; So much so in fact, that wealthier individuals in the very same nations listed, are known to partake in Medical Tourism to the US in order to take advantage of the higher Quality of Care. Suffice it to say, there is no way the USA could possibly afford to provide "Free" Healthcare at it's standard level for all 329,000,000+ Citizens (And counting, not even including Illegal Immigrants).

3. Military
Here is a hard truth, a Nation ceases to exist without a Military & Strong Borders; this is actually a large part of the reason the Soviet Union could not possibly keep up with us and ultimately fell 30+ Years ago. Incidentally, A lot of the nations on that list receive foreign aid from us, often in the form of Military aid, which allows them to divert the funds that would ordinarily go to their own Military towards programs like Universal Healthcare. There is simply no parallel where Nations contribute more than what we have provided them with, much less to the level sufficient enough to cover our entire Military's expenses (Which is necessarily is the largest in the world because of our significance as a Superpower Nation & to protect the Sheer Population & landmass size, etc). I would absolutely love to see the shit show that would ensue if America finally pulled foreign aid from these Nations, watch their attitude towards Socialism change overnight or continue down their path of self destruction & Get Swallowed up by a larger Nation (Probably Russia or China).

​

I could go on, but I think I covered the biggest points of contention regarding this issue & Hopefully I will have inspired at least one reader to be more critical instead of just accepting common Narratives.

1. Population is irrelevant, since as the number of people to be covered goes up, so does the number of taxpayers. It's also double irrelevant when you consider the income disparities in the USA and how much the rich can disproportionately pay into the system.
2. The quality of care per dollar in the USA is laughably low.
3. We have a bloated military budget. The USA can slash its military budget while still remaining a "superpower."

The cost of health care is entirely the fault of the government meddling with what should be a free market issue

That's pretty laughable, since a.) We know what the costs of healthcare look like without government meddling, and b.) The government to this day hardly meddles with the insurance market, aside from laughably low-bar requirements for healthcare coverage.

Edit: Before we get into a big argument, I'm going to agree with you that requirements on employers to provide health insurance coverage is a terrible policy.

 

[IncredulousP]

We have a bloated military budget. The USA can slash its military budget while still remaining a "superpower."

How many dollar bills were wasted in Afganistan again? Billions? Trillions?

 

[Foxi4]

Edit: Before we get into a big argument, I'm going to agree with you that requirements on employers to provide health insurance coverage is a terrible policy.

I'm okay with just that, we agree that the policy is bad and the root of the problem. I'm fine with us having different ideas on the solutions as long as the primary issue is recognised.

 

[RationalityIsLost101]

That is exactly how a paid service is supposed to be and I wholeheartedly agree with this method "except for true emergency cases ofwhich not caused by neglect."
I'm well known among many circles of non-legible patients (emigrants not covered by government healthcare program) to go the extra mile and I'm happy to do my job the best I could.
What I'm not happy about is anybody willfully throwing away their health and demand that you patch them up like new whenever they feel like it.

And in regards to the "whenever they feel like it" part, I've often seen patients brought to ER by ambulance only to find their onset of complaint started a couple of months ago.
With further history taking, it becomes apparent that they have the ulterior motive of acquiring a sick leave.
They either didn't care to get it treated sooner or at least kept it as an open ticket to get sick leaves whenever they want and they never face the paywall for their decisions as they'd pay more attention to their health.
Also, sick leaves here free you of any legal issues (traffic fines, court hearings and even accusations for killing someone).

Luckily, it's planned to change the whole system to divert the entire healthcare system to the Civic and private sectors equally through insurance companies.
Sure, everyone will be getting their health insurance for free, but many wouldn't due to outstanding amount of traffic violations and any other legal issues (some going up to $500k in traffic violations).
Also, insurance companies wouldn't pay for the aforementioned unnecessary X-Ray to accommodate someone's comfort zone and would have to pay for it.

Even then, the problem is the ethical application of an insurance provider forcing someone to pay for anything that should be covered by the insurance as often happens in the US.
I choose to do my best job either way but it'll leave much out of my hand to truly help the sick and needy.

Well I appreciate your insight, I can see the raised concerns. It sounds like there is a power imbalance on the patient autonomy in directing healthcare vs physician expertise where you are located.

While I don't foresee these type of issues becoming systemic in an expansion of healthcare in our system due to us already having a partial coverage for the elderly and the destitute I can become more proactive in viewing legislation that covers such an expansion to make sure they entail safeguards to prevent abuse.

We have a medicare/medicaid fraud and other pieces of legislation that put the onus on the healthcare providers to prove to the insurance providers that all procedures and interventions are warranted and we could stand to increase such regulations if it expands to the entire population.

 

[RationalityIsLost101]

That's pretty laughable, since a.) We know what the costs of healthcare look like without government meddling, and b.) The government to this day hardly meddles with the insurance market, aside from laughably low-bar requirements for healthcare coverage.

Edit: Before we get into a big argument, I'm going to agree with you that requirements on employers to provide health insurance coverage is a terrible policy.

I agree with this as well. Employer's should have never been linked to our health insurance.

11 of our states have an insurance commissioners that are elected, the rest are appointed (who is bothering to ask Governors who they are appointing for their insurance commissioner?). Either way Insurance companies have bought out our politicians (on both sides) for decades and insured (pun intended) that they will privatize the gains and socialize the losses.

Fun fact involving a deep-red southern state:
Louisiana had a bizarre 500yr flood and a 1000yr flood back in 2016. Their elected insurance commissioner (since '06 I believe?) never even came close to loosing his seat, they are the 2nd highest in car insurance in the nation. There's other factors that come into play like auto accident lawyers being able to advertise, etc. But the point is the commissioner allowed them to raise rates multiple times within 2 years to insure proper profit margins. He received a healthy kickback via campaign contributions.

Health insurance isn't much better I'm afraid. Sooner we overturn citizens' united the better.

 

[YukidaruPunch]

I live in Brazil. My country is one with gigantical issues, striking violence and abysmal income inequality. We do, however, have a public healthcare system.

It isn't perfect, and it doesn't always work, and sometimes people have to wait much longer than they should; but when it works, it works. I personally know people who have been treated for cancer through our free healthcare. The way our healthcare is perceived by much of the populace, however, is of one which flat-out doesn't work, so lots of people from middle and upper classes have to pay for private healthcare, which is crazy expensive. Since our president lies among the worst in the world, you always have political propaganda running around trying to demoralise the system and incentivise it to shut down.

Unlike the U.S., college education is also free for those students who get a good score on ENEM (it's kinda like out SATs) while we also have private universities which are easier to get into, but costly. Basic education, however, is lacking compared to private schools, so most middle and upper class families resort to that when raising their children. It's kinda like the opposite of the U.S. in this sense. This leads to a weird outcome where wealthy families are most probable to get spots in both public and private college education - the previous populist government made measures in order to even things out and lower social inequality, however the current government talks about privatizing public universities and fucking everything up again. We're currently in a state where things that are very costly in the U.S. (healthcare, college education) can be achieved for free, but the current government works it best in retracting that.

All that being said, I don't mean to say Brazil is better or worse than the U.S. because of those subjects, but one thing that I find really striking is most most Brazilians have no idea about the differences I just listed above. To the eyes of many, the U.S. is the land of opportunity where you can have a great life and iPhones are cheaper. I don't know how it is in any other countries in the world, nor how it is in the rest of Latin America, but I can assertedly say a whooping lot of our populace just thinks the U.S. is an outright better place and has no idea about those issues regarding the lack of free healthcare and the outstanding expenses amassed over college education. I worked as an English teacher some time ago and it was striking how many people from middle and upper classes hadn't the slightest idea of that.

A better alternative to free or affordable health care is possible and there are many worldwide countries which serve as an example of how this can plainly work. It's one of those things that always seem impossible until they're done. Changing the mindset of people unto understanding how things can be different would be an ideal scenario. Much like many people in the U.S. may think free healthcare would be either impossible or absurd, many people from other countries think it's absurd how the U.S. doesn't have it. Having said change would be excellent because it would push other countries to follow suit.

As it stands, healthcare in the U.S. is a market. I'm hoping this changes in the future.

 

[Deleted User]

Everytime I read about Public Health Care in the USA...
I really wonder how people get by in this system.
Thank God for our Health Care system in Austria!

 

[Xzi]

I really wonder how people get by with this system.

Many can't. There have been a disturbing number of diabetics who have died in recent years by attempting to ration their insulin. It's $300+ a month in the US, even though it costs the same $6 per vial to manufacture that it does in any other country.

Bottom line: privatized healthcare insurance is a scam and shouldn't exist, I don't give a fuck how many people it employs.

 

[Deleted User]

I heard about that from a neighbour of mine. He currently lives as an exchange student in Orlando.
He told me that People who can´t afford medical attention just die..
They open a GoFundMe campaign and try to get by until the end.

 

[rsx]

Insurance is a scam for so many reasons. You have to pay a fee on top of the fees you're already paying, called a deductible. And the insurance company decides which medications and procedures it'll cover and you have no recourse. It's like a loaded game of cards, and the house always wins. And if you need some type of surgery, the doctor needs to get authorization (which takes anywhere from 1-3 weeks). This becomes a problem when the procedure is deemed to be very important.

My insurance is lousy, it only covers a visit to the dentist once a year. I went the other day and they said because I've only been there once every year, now I have to have an expensive deep cleaning. The insurance company is supposed to pay for it, and from then on I'll be able to have a cleaning every three months. If they just had a policy allowing cleanings every six months, I wouldn't be in this predicament.

 

[D34DL1N3R]

Healthcare in America does suck which is why Trump is trying to fix it. Unfortunately, we have a party of power hungry idiots who would rather waste our/their time, taxes, etc trying to impeach him instead of fixing what needs fixing. Trump has already signed executive orders forcing hospitals to be transparent in their pricing which means you will know before hand if you will get gouged by that hospital. This way, you can shop around for the cheapest surgeries and bring competition into the healthcare market. His admin is also trying to work on lowering prescription costs.

If the do nothing democrats would work with him on actual policies rather than running a fake impeachment circus, maybe we can have actual "change we can believe in" in America which no other administration has done before.

I think if the democrats would drop their own government provided healthcare and had to use the ACA health insurance system, which they thought was so good enough for us that they would not allow anybody to know what was in it until it passed, I'm sure our Healthcare system would be a top priority to them.

You are as absolutely, incredibly stupid, as Cotz. Trump trying to fix it? Where's the plan he's been promising for three years now that was going to be the be all, end all, healthcare plan? Answer... he has NOTHING and never has. And "do nothing Democrats"? You obviously stole that one straight from Trumps own mouth/Twitter, and once again, you fall for it. Have anything new or original? How about you ask Mitch why there are hundreds of Dem bills on his desk that he flat out REFUSES to bring to Senate. And you want to talk about do nothing? Hypocrite!

 

[Super.Nova]

I agree with this as well. Employer's should have never been linked to our health insurance.

11 of our states have an insurance commissioners that are elected, the rest are appointed (who is bothering to ask Governors who they are appointing for their insurance commissioner?). Either way Insurance companies have bought out our politicians (on both sides) for decades and insured (pun intended) that they will privatize the gains and socialize the losses.

Fun fact involving a deep-red southern state:
Louisiana had a bizarre 500yr flood and a 1000yr flood back in 2016. Their elected insurance commissioner (since '06 I believe?) never even came close to loosing his seat, they are the 2nd highest in car insurance in the nation. There's other factors that come into play like auto accident lawyers being able to advertise, etc. But the point is the commissioner allowed them to raise rates multiple times within 2 years to insure proper profit margins. He received a healthy kickback via campaign contributions.

Health insurance isn't much better I'm afraid. Sooner we overturn citizens' united the better.

I always thought the whole point of getting an insurance (though mandatory) was to avoid paying for the medical needs until the movie "Saw" taught me otherwise
It's way too much of a mess over the US I wonder what's the point of mandating an insurance if it's going to deny all claims.

I can not but wonder if the government had a gain into all of this as it can hardly be explained otherwise.
If it was for me, all healthcare services should be free for at least people whom really can't afford it and only emergency cases for middle class citizens.
At least I believe it would put more balance into this mess as the upper class would contribute a bit towards the lower classes with dire need of service.
Let alone proper education on how and when should intervention happen and how to avoid it altogether.

 

[0x3000027E]

The government to this day hardly meddles with the insurance market.

Ahem. US federal government is the largest single payer of healthcare in the US (accounts for more than 25%). Of course that type of revenue gives them considerable influence in the market. Furthermore, state-level legislation grants insurance companies advantages that serve to reduce fair market competition (that would significantly reduce health care costs).

The cost of health care is entirely the fault of the government meddling with what should be a free market issue

Surprised this wasn't mentioned earlier in the thread.

 

[Xzi]

Surprised this wasn't mentioned earlier in the thread.

It wasn't mentioned because it's nonsense. Privatization drives up the cost of everything it touches. Less regulation just means more price fixing and higher costs. Or worse, the biggest companies eat the smaller ones until there are only two options left and they both suck. A prime example of this is the high-speed ISP market in America, where 98% of people only have access to either Comcast or Time Warner. Everybody fucking hates them, their prices and data caps get more ludicrous every year, but it doesn't matter because they've got the market cornered.

 

[D34DL1N3R]

So, Trump just threw $738 billion into Space Force. Yet still no healthcare plan. At all. And the right will continue to believe his 2020 campaign ̶p̶r̶o̶m̶i̶s̶e̶s̶ lies.