The reason Healthcare is so expensive in this country

[edhopper]

Last edited Thu Sep 23, 2021, 08:36 PM - Edit history (1)

is that it is for profit.
The reason businesses don't want to give their employees Healthcare is because they are for profit.

Anybody see the a pattern to our problem with Healthcare?

[A HERETIC I AM]

1. Profit trumps the public good in this country.

I would say it always has, but I don't think that's true. It certainly has been the case for most of my lifetime.

It's the reason why we can't seem to stop killing people in faraway lands. The MIC needs to be fed, and us god damned peaceniks want to make it harder for the CEO's of General Dynamics and Raytheon and Rockwell and the rest to take home millions and millions of our tax dollars.

And they just can't have that, now can they?

I find it astounding that so many people in this country defend the private health insurance industry, as if they are just big, cuddly bunnies and friends of the average Joe, instead of the parasites on the working class that they are.

[moose65]

2. Agreed

For-profit health insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and for-profit hospitals know that we have no other alternative, really. We have to pay what they charge, so they inflate the prices because they can.

Health care is not a commodity that behaves like others. It does NOT respond to changes in demand. It’s inelastic. If a person is hit by a car and unconscious in the street, they don’t have the luxury of shopping around to see which provider is cheapest. In many areas of this country there is only ONE hospital, so there is no choice of where to go.

About 3 years ago I had my gallbladder removed and dealt with pancreatitis. I was in the hospital for 5 days. Not once in that time did anyone tell me how much something cost, and I didn’t ask. I was hurting so much that I would’ve paid a year’s salary for those pain meds. I didn’t think about cost one single time.

It’s kinda like the fire department. When you call them, there’s usually just one department that will come to your house. No one asks about the cost of extinguishing the fire.

[NickB79]

3. We're the most obese nation on Earth, and getting worse every year

That alone adds $190 billion to our health care costs annually. That's over 20% of all medical spending.

Until we take transformative steps to reverse our obesity epidemic, we'll never get our medical costs under control.

[Hoyt]

4. It is for profit. Unfortunately, which politicians are going to tell doctors, nurses,

medical assistants, pharmacists, techs, people who assemble and maintain medical devices and equipment, etc., to take less?

Obviously, we can cut some overhead out by getting rid of for profit insurance. But, are we going to get excited about going from $1000 month in health insurance premiums to $900, by cutting out insurance companies.

I’m fine with telling CEOs, stockholders, etc., to take less. But that won’t make much difference in costs unless providers and support staff take less.

We need to cut whatever we can, but healthcare is expensive here and in every developed country.

[edhopper]

5. This simply isn't true

We spend more on Heathcare per capita by a very wide margin than any other country.
All the ones that insure all their people spend far less with better results.
And most Dr.s support National Healthcare.

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN31432035

?w=650

[Hoyt]

6. Exactly. Our nurses and doctors make more than counterparts in Britain, Germany, etc.

Like I said, who is going to tell them to take less?

We pay more for medical devices, hospitals, etc. Someone is going to have to take less. Fine by me, but who is going to put their government position on the line?

Don’t think we we debating the cost of healthcare. The article is a bit old, 2008.

[edhopper]

9. Again, you are wrong

They do quite well in other countries.

https://medicfootprints.org/10-highest-paying-countries-for-doctors/
Very close to what we pay, and once you remove malpractice insurance, they make more.

It's the money siphoned off for profit that is the problem.

[Hoyt]

12. Do you even read the articles? US docs make a good 20+% more than

all other countries listed there except Luxembourg.

Go look at nurses and techs too. That extra 20% is profit too, so to speak.

BTW, doc salaries are after expenses, including malpractice. And when the doc gets cut, he’ll take a chunk out of employees too.

Again, think it should, in fact has to, be done, but no current politician has guts to do it.

[edhopper]

13. Last sentence

Completely agree.

[Hoyt]

14. Let's take a break with that. Have enjoyed the discussion. Hope we end up

in a better place soon with respect to healthcare (and a bunch more).

[edhopper]

17. Yes

[uponit7771]

26. Malpractice caps is what we were told in Texas would lower HC cost and it didn't. The MPI didn't go

... down and neither did the cost of medical treatments from doctors.

Malpractice being part of the cost of doing business isn't what keeps cost high of US docs

[Hoyt]

27. Agree 100%.

[dweller]

7. They are making $$

off of us
We should charge them more for our labor


✌🏻

[hibbing]

8. Same with assisted living n/t

[mitch96]

10. In a word, greed... I've worked in hospitals for many decades and if the money is there...

They take it.. Pencil in any flavor of "they" you want..
m

[doc03]

11. Health insurance, the more medical costs are the larger the profits are. If they pay out $100

million and make a 10% profit for processing it they make $10 million. If they pay out $200 million and
make 10% profit they make $20 million profit.
It's like the cost plus military suppliers made in WWII. The higher the cost the more they profit. There is
no incentive to keep costs down.

[Ron Green]

15. One risk pool is a health care system. Multiple risk pools is an investment scheme.

We have enough investment schemes in this country; we need a health care system.

[akbacchus_BC]

16. Health care does not need to be that expensive but the system supports it. For goodness sake,

the US just has to adopt our (Canada) system. I can vouch for our medicare. Eye care and dental are not included but everything else is covered. The pharma companies have the politicians in cohoots with them. Drugs are not that expensive and we also have Pharmacare, where cheap drugs are covered, I meant cheap as mine is cheaper than the dispension fee.

[hunter]

18. Insurance companies don't care so much about costs...

... as they do the size of their revenue streams.

The bigger the revenue stream, the more they can siphon off for their top executives and shareholders.

There's a "sweet" spot between the pain of the insured and corporate profits that has nothing to do with health.

What's worse, here in the U.S.A., even people with platinum insurance plans or great wealth often receive wildly inappropriate and sometimes dangerous medical care.

If I was emperor of the U.S.A. I'd nationalize the whole damned health care "system" and pay good people to get medical training so they'd graduate from school debt free.

[fescuerescue]

19. There is no one reason. There is about a dozen reasons.

Even outside the US, the doctors and nurses make a profit. As well as the drug manufacturers and medical equipment makers.

In the last few decades, the left has had all three branches of government a few times. And so has the right.

If it was just ONE reason, it would have been fixed by now.

[edhopper]

21. Yes Drs and Nurses make a living

but it is organized and coordinated by the Governments with the purpose to deliver Healthcare to everyone. Not make the Insurance companies and Pharms and Hospitals big profits.

The left never had this country, under Clinton and Obama, the center held the Government. Both tried to get Universal Healthcare, with limited or no success. The left were not the ones that stopped that.

It is ONE reason, the power of the for profit Healthcare industry.

[fescuerescue]

31. I didn't say there was no profit involved.

I said there was 11 other reasons as well.

And never is to big of a word to be waiving around like that.

we had opportunities and we wasted them.

[edhopper]

32. So when

did the left hold the country and failed to get UHC?

[fescuerescue]

33. This isn't a forum where we criticize our own.

So I'm not going down that trail.

But anyone who's been paying attention for the last 4 decades knows that have been opportunities.

[edhopper]

34. I agree

we could have, should have and didn't.

What I am saying is the left or progressives never controlled the Government. The Centrist Democrats did. And there were enough more conservative Dems to get in the way of the progress we needed.
We have never had a left wing Government.

[hunter]

35. Working for a living isn't that kind of "profit."

Playing the system gets you the private jet and weekend trips to Paris with your mistress.

[sarcasmo]

20. Profit over morals. Merica!

[redqueen]

22. There is also a need to overhaul our nutritional guidance.

Sugar is toxic, but it's added to just about every kind of processed food.

Metabolic syndrome and it's resulting disease processes are a huge drain on the healthcare system.

[CTyankee]

23. We were told again and again that we "don't want socialized medicine" cuz you can't pick your own

doctor, that the government denies you what you are forbidden to buy on your own, that we have all these advances in medicine due to capitalism.

Those arguments are old. I don't know what the argument is now. I stopped listening to them.

[edhopper]

24. They had arguments

that didn't hold the scrutiny of looking at other countries with UHC. But they were rational, if false arguments.
Now it's lunatic, conspiratorial government boogeyman garbage.

[CTyankee]

25. I traveled to Europe each year for 10 consecutive years to research art works and history. In each

country I made it a practice to ask Europeans if they wanted "American style health care" and they all said NO! They said that they were happy with their doctors. That there was no "rationing."

We were fed bullshit and lies. Come to find out they were backed by large medical "providers" and health care and drug companies.

There are large swaths of this country who believe these lies because they don't know any better. If they did, they would have their eyes opened.

[lindysalsagal]

28. Shareholders are the 21st century gods. And we continue to sacrifice grandma's health to them.

Shame on us.

[edhopper]

30. "Shareholders" is also bullshit

as if all those people with IRAs were the shareholders.
The shareholders with power are the CEOs, The Boards, and the Hedge Funds that also own the companies.

[leftstreet]

29. DURec