The US health care system is profit oriented.

[guillaumeb]

And that is an obvious observation.

Providing actual health care is secondary.

The pharmaceutical industry spends more on advertising than actual research. And such advertising is unethical, and designed to promote particular brands of drugs to the prospective customers, called patients.

Pharmaceutical companies will reformulate their product every few years to sustain their patents, and they raise the prices of their products to the captive customer base of US citizens. Plus there are no restrictions on how much US pharmaceutical companies can gouge their customers. That is why drugs in the US cost far more than in Canada.


Hospitals often buy expensive equipment, even if a nearby hospital has that equipment, so they can compete for customers, called patients, and buying expensive and unnecessary equipment forces the hospitals to raise prices.


Plus the health care industry contributes much money to the politicians.


Most other advanced countries have already understood this and responded appropriately to put health and people before profits.

But in the US, we have an endless debate about how to find a solution that already exists.

[Ohiogal]

1. Very well said.

[guillaumeb]

2. Thank you.

I really fail to see what the real issue is, other than perhaps some fear change. The US system is unsustainable, and still failing.

I regularly read local stories about some person resorting to a GoFundMe campaign to pay for health care services that an insurer will not cover.

[Hoyt]

3. We definitely would be better off if we'd gone to single payer, or something close,

decades ago before the profit motive became so entrenched. Now, we have to wring that out of the system to implement a truly viable healthcare system.

[guillaumeb]

4. And to do that, we have to wring out the bribes that the SCOTUS calls free speech

and take campaign contributions out of politics.

The health care industry owns politicians, and that is what really prevents change that might put patients first.

[Bradshaw3]

5. May be obvious but needs to be said again and again

Because that is the primary reason our healthcare system is so screwed up. Well said.

[guillaumeb]

9. We need to say it until it replaces the current narrative.

And we need to remind our fellow citizens that the problem has been solved by many other countries. One factor that hinders this is the myth of American exceptionalism.

[Bradshaw3]

15. Yes and yes

I thought Dems and most of the country decided in 2008 that major changes were needed, but we seem to be still fighting that battle.

[Wounded Bear]

6. We don't have a healthcare "system"...

We have a health care industry.

[guillaumeb]

7. Exactly. And that industry has customers.

Sometimes they are called patients, but they are potential profit modules.

[librechik]

8. exactly--they are in a frenzy to reap the last of their inhumane billions

before we step up and kick them out (for profit hospitals,insurance agencies and suppliers.)

I'm hoping we can--but probably not.

[guillaumeb]

10. One obstacle is that money is speech in the US.

And bribes to politicians are seen as speech.

[librechik]

12. those monopolies/cartels have us boxed in. Can't imagine how we can get out of their clutches

we should be "you have a right to healthcare..period" And the whole system should follow that standard. Maybe a constitutional amendment could make it happen, but that's a long shot.

It's ironic that if you are accused of murder you have a right to a lawyer. But if you actually have diabetes, go to Canada.

[guillaumeb]

14. A fantastic ending.

FDR proposed an expanded Bill of Rights.

[LanternWaste]

11. Maybe it is just an observation, but it's an accurate and succinct one.

[guillaumeb]

13. Thank you.

It seems obvious. And where else can we see people crowd funding to pay for what should be seen as a right, and is seen as a right in every other advanced country?

[ismnotwasm]

16. You are talking about cities

Also, I’m not disagreeing with you. The pharmaceutical companies are responsible for a lot of this mess.

It’s worth noting there are many, many underserved areas, rural hospitals tend to not have expensive equipment like the latest MRI or CT machines. Or the staff to care for complex problems. My hospital receives transfers every day from areas not equipped to care for a particular illness, areas that don’t have the means to run certain tests. Even my hospital sends out certain bloodwork.

There are issues such as the lack of LTACs—hospitals that provide long term care to very sick people on hemodialysis or permanently vented. There are LTC quality issues. There are clinic and hospital quality and crowding issues.

There are issues such as WHERE pharmaceuticals are manufactured.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1800347

We run out of hydromorphine PCA bags as well, in fact they’re are shortages all the time of a number of necessary drugs

https://www.ashp.org/drug-shortages/current-shortages/drug-shortages-list?page=CurrentShortages


So yeah, a profit based system is worth acknowledging, but we are swamped with suffering human beings. We need to make sure proper care can be provided along with whatever healthcare delivery system is finally deliver. I work in a large hospital with dedicated teams. I work 12 hour shifts.

We are not the bad guys

[guillaumeb]

17. No, you and your co-workers are the good people.

The villains are the executives who put profit first, last, and always.

And part of the problem is layers of insurance company workers, and the highly paid executives and corporate big shots, and companies that put obstacles in the way of delivering health care.

[ismnotwasm]

18. I actually work at a teaching Hospital

We were running in the red there, for a couple of years, but finances is a tricky thing, and since nurses are a large part of a hospitals budget, it’s interesting how they try to limit staffing. Pay consultants hundreds of thousands of dollars to basically put less staff on the floor.

However, We have a strong union. Thank God.


On the patient end of things, More and more we see fight to get things covered, whether it’s Medicare or Insurance companies. Horror stories of co-pays, lack of decent rehab facilities, just all kinds of problems. Had a patient recently who was post surgery, didn’t want to take a particular med because they were actually prescribed this med at home, and was convince their insurance company would not pay for it. From experience sadly.

[guillaumeb]

19. As the parent of a special needs child, now an adult,

I could write a book on health insurers and their tactics. Deny and delay was the strategy we saw. And in talking to other parents of special needs children, we were not the exception.

And in that hospital, or in every medical office in the country, how many are paid to deal with insurance companies? That is another facet of the US health care industry that is rarely explored by the media. The enormous cost of dedicating workers to dealing with a myriad of plans.

[ismnotwasm]

20. That's a good point.

It’s a zoo, with a myriad of problems. Medicare also is very codified, from what I understand some insurance companies are easier to deal with than others, Medicare is fairly straight forward, but it has limits. I asked a prominent surgeon what his opinion was on universal healthcare and he’s all for it, but he’s the one who told me that drug companies need to be brought to heel. Drug companies do tons of research though, investing in new medications, new treatments, new cures. So while I want to see them price regulated, I’m not sure how to go about addressing the research.

Then again, When the cure for Hepatitis C came out, it was a thousand dollars a pill.

[ck4829]

21. K&R