Health Care Costs Are Top Priority of Voters

[applegrove]

Health Care Costs Are Top Priority of Voters

February 19, 2020 at 8:47 am EST By Taegan Goddard 66 Comments

https://politicalwire.com/2020/02/19/health-care-costs-are-top-priority-of-voters/

"SNIP.....

A new Politico/Harvard survey finds the vast majority of Americans rank cutting health care and prescription drug costs as their top priorities heading into election season, regardless of party affiliation.

Roughly 80% of those surveyed ranked “taking steps to lower the cost of health care” as “extremely” or “very” important, including 89% of Democrats and 76% of Republicans. Reducing prescription-drug costs saw similar support at 75%, with majorities in both parties ranking it as extremely or very important.

......SNIP"

[LonePirate]

1. Medicare for All does exactly that.

[Hoyt]

2. Wait until the 20% of us who make a living off the healthcare system realize that means their

pay will go down, assuming they keep their job.

It will impact everyone from physicians, nurses, orderlies, medical device manufacturing, diagnostic facility employees, patients, support industries, and much more. Just compare physician and nursing salaries in USA vs. Britain, Canada, France, etc., the number of CT and other imaging facilities, the number of knee replacements per person, and other metrics that the USA lives off of.

Or wait until patients scream when the USA equivalent of the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) says the NHS is no longer going to cover that. Or, Warren and Sander's supporters find out we might end up like Canada and have to purchase our own drug coverage since it's not part of the system.

We've got to do it, but it won't be pretty, or as easy as some think or are telling us.

[JCMach1]

3. The current system is neither fair, or sustainable

Nor is it capitalism...

Bring on single-payer, ASAP

[Hoyt]

5. I agree 100%, but the can will keep getting kicked down the road because too many people, including

relatively low paid workers, are living well off the system.

[applegrove]

4. There will be more patients and i would imagine as demand goes up,

wages will too. I was in hospital for a few weeks. I used to go for walks. This was in canada. I would pass beautiful jaguars and such outside. Those were doctor's cars. Some nurses in canada make $100,000. And people are getting older so cancer treatment will rise. I would imagine shortages of healthcare workers for a number of reasons would make wages rise. Trust me our health care workers make good wages. And they have free healthcare themselves.

[Hoyt]

6. Don't think so. Everyone -- doctors, nurse, etc. -- think they are overworked now.

Compare nurse and physician salaries in USA to France, Germany, Britain, etc. Some nurses in USA make well over $150K too, but not the typical nurse.

Again, I'm fine with it -- but there will be a backlash and people will gripe about any new system and as soon as GOPers are elected, they'll try to undermine it, and worse.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

7. Most of the excess goes to insurance companies and pharma ...

The people who actually deliver health care services are being short-changed under the current system.

[Hoyt]

8. That's naive. We perform CT scans and Knee Replacements - an indicator of utilization - more than 2X

twice rate that countries like France do.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

9. It's not naive.

There was a news item posted here a few days ago which included a doctor complaining about how neither he nor the market sets the prices, but rather the insurance company dictates. The only ones in a competitive market are those doing elective services.

[Hoyt]

10. Medicare has dictated prices since at least 1980s, and to some extent before that. Are you suggest-

ing we let market set prices.

Christ, you have no idea how that worked when Medicare first started. Medicare rates were based on what physicians and other providers charged in the previous years. Rates were going up so fast that they had to impose fee freezes and eventually go to mandated fees.