Health Care

[Ursa Majoris]

These were in the paper this morning. These sort of stats appear each week and are researched. Interesting.

 

$477 billion

 

Amount that the United States overpays each year on health care vs. what would be expected if the country fit the spending pattern of other advanced countries, which translates into $1,645 per person every year, according to McKinsey Global Institute, the independent research arm of the consulting firm.

 

4

 

Percentage of the $477 billion accounted for by costs for malpractice insurance and defensive medicine practices above those incurred in other countries, according to McKinsey.

 

31

 

Percentage of that $477 billion that is accounted for by inefficiencies and complexities in our health care system's operations and structure, compared to the health care systems of other advanced countries.

 

21

 

Percent of that $477 billion that is accounted for by higher costs of medical labor, primarily the incomes of doctors, nurses and medical technicians, even after accounting for malpractice insurance costs paid by doctors and other medical workers.

 

45

 

Percentage of American health care spending paid for by all levels of government, according to a study published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

 

38

 

Percent of all health care spending in the U.S. that was paid for by all levels of government in 1970.

 

So....a mere 4% of the overspend on health care can be attributed to the evil lawyers, while 31% is attributed to the bloated administration. What was that about government inefficiency again?

[isleseeya]

I am feeling sick after reading this and these #'s

[spain]

We definitely need healthcare reform, but I certainly dont know what the answer is.

[TimC]

$100

 

Cost to kill someone too old and letting them die with dignity instead of spending countless dollars and hours trying to keep them alive with no plausible future.

[Ursa Majoris]

We definitely need healthcare reform, but I certainly dont know what the answer is.

 

Imagine the effect on the economy if employers were able to rid themselves of the health care burden. The problem is.....where does the burden then fall? What if the overall burden was reduced by 25% or so, bringing it more into line with other comparable countries?

[Chavez]

$100

 

Cost to kill someone too old and letting them die with dignity instead of spending countless dollars and hours trying to keep them alive with no plausible future.

 

I agree. I think it should be up to the individual, not the state, but in a previous thread where a Huddler mentioned an older relative in a terminal situation, I thought that option A-1 for myself would be a shotgun ride into the next life.

 

Of course, I say that being a healthy 33-year-old; when I'm 89 and decrepit I may be clinging onto life for all I'm worth.

[Ursa Majoris]

$100

 

Cost to kill someone too old and letting them die with dignity instead of spending countless dollars and hours trying to keep them alive with no plausible future.

 

Since very nearly all countries do the same thing as us, this has minimal if any effect on our ridiculously high costs. The problem lies in the many organizations making money out of health care, not in some Logan's Run spot solution.

[Dr. Love]

Some of these "statistics" seem to involve things that are less than completely objective. I doubt that you could encompass all things considered defensive medical practices with just 4%. I'd also like to see how the author defines "inefficiencies".

 

As others have said, I don't think that there's any question that the health care system needs attention. However, I'll need to see actual data before I believe that a governmentally-managed health care system is 30+% more efficient than a privately-managed one.

[Piles]

I would be curious to know just what big spam adds to the total health care tab....

[H8tank]

Do docs and hospitals order more possibly uneeded tests, which drive up costs, to avoid a lawsuit?

 

Why are c-sections up so high yet birth defect ratios are the same?

 

Don't know? Google it momo, this is not a hard equation to figure.

 

Should all docs work for the gov't? What do you think federalized health care would mean? Means the people who deliver your mail and take your water at the airport now deliver your baby and process your catheter.

[Ursa Majoris]

Should all docs work for the gov't? What do you think federalized health care would mean? Means the people who deliver your mail and take your water at the airport now deliver your baby and process your catheter.

 

I'll be sure to let my mail guy know he's due to be working the night shift down at the clinic.

[Jimmy Neutron]

As others have said, I don't think that there's any question that the health care system needs attention. However, I'll need to see actual data before I believe that a governmentally-managed health care system is 30+% more efficient than a privately-managed one.

 

 

+1

[Ursa Majoris]

As others have said, I don't think that there's any question that the health care system needs attention. However, I'll need to see actual data before I believe that a governmentally-managed health care system is 30+% more efficient than a privately-managed one.

 

How about this one, one of the stats already posted?

$477 billion

 

Amount that the United States overpays each year on health care vs. what would be expected if the country fit the spending pattern of other advanced countries, which translates into $1,645 per person every year, according to McKinsey Global Institute, the independent research arm of the consulting firm.

In other words, our health care is that much more expensive per person than other advanced countries.

[Jimmy Neutron]

In other words, our health care is that much more expensive per person than other advanced countries.

 

 

I'd like to see considerably more detail than that article offers. Is this an apples to apples comparison? There are vastly different protocols for many treatments from one country to the next. Isn't one reason the US is so expensive is that docs and hospitals like to run so many precautionary tests? I know the lab division of my country is always to top netting part of the business.

 

There is no doubt that there is considerable corporate greed taking place in the US healthcare system. Still, I trust those greedy corporate bastages more than I trust the government. At least the corporate goons are in competition with each other.

[Ursa Majoris]

Hey Bear Fatty, do you always miss the obvious?

 

No, addled one, I do not. If you want to keep on clutching at straws to save your brainwashed pre-conceived notions, then knock yourself out. It remains a fact that health care in the US is at least 30% more expensive than in other advanced countries and it is also a fact that we do not live as long as they do, we have higher infant mortality rates than many of them and on and on.

 

Just keep on blindly chanting your mantra.

[Bill Swerski]

It remains a fact that health care in the US is at least 30% more expensive than in other advanced countries

 

Ah, but at what cost? How are the economies of these "other advanced countries" doing in comparison to the U.S.?

 

I don't know about you, but I'll take more expensive healthcare and a job that allows me to pay for it over free healthcare, extremely high taxes, and 10-15% unemployment.

Edited February 26, 2007 by Bill Swerski

[H8tank]

we have higher infant mortality rates than many of them

 

Hey, thanks for showing how stupid you really are!

 

We spend billions of $$$ on babies born with problems that other countries just throw away and don't count. When one of you liberal tards regurgitate that crap I love it, what a MORAN to think that.

 

Name one other country you would prefer to have your child born in. one. Cuba? Mexico? France?

[Ursa Majoris]

Hey, thanks for showing how stupid you really are!

 

We spend billions of $$$ on babies born with problems that other countries just throw away and don't count. When one of you liberal tards regurgitate that crap I love it, what a MORAN to think that.

 

Name one other country you would prefer to have your child born in. one. Cuba? Mexico? France?

 

The benefits of US citizenship are not the issue here. What is at issue is the quality of healthcare versus the cost of it.

 

The rest of your post is drivel.

[Chavez]

 

You REALLY can't fail to rise to the bait, can you, Ursa?

[Ursa Majoris]

You REALLY can't fail to rise to the bait, can you, Ursa?

 

Nope. An opportunity to mock the addled one never passes unused. I used to think it was cruel to mock retards, now I see it as a kind of casual sport.

[BeeR]

These were in the paper this morning. These sort of stats appear each week and are researched.

 

Well by golly if they were researched, they MUST be true!

 

Now this may all be correct (or at least close), but pardon me if I don't quite take this as gospel offhand.

[Ursa Majoris]

Well by golly if they were researched, they MUST be true!

 

Now this may all be correct (or at least close), but pardon me if I don't quite take this as gospel offhand.

 

OK. Try this instead. There are at least six charts here that say the same thing - we spend far more than anyone else.

 

This is from the Kaiser foundation, BTW.

[Clubfoothead]

Do docs and hospitals order more possibly uneeded tests, which drive up costs, to avoid a lawsuit?

 

 

Your insurance company wants your doctor to stuff some antibiotics down yer throat when you show up $hitting yer pants, puking all over yourself and running a 102 degree fever missing 3-5 days of work then if a 7-10 day series of that doesn't work, they think running additional tests is OK.

 

Fast forward 3 months and you find out the peanut butter you were eating was contaminated with salmonella. You throw the jar away as instructed and mail the lid back for your $5.00 refund like the FDA tells you.

 

You then wonder if maybe you had salmonella since those are all the symptoms. You are just wondering until you find out you got the salmonella because the illegal mexican that replaced Big John's neighbor in the Georgia ConAgra plant isn't in the habit of washing his hands after dropping a deuce since the water where he comes from is more unclean than his feces. So now your pissed and figure ConAgra owes you 3-5 days sick leave, your deductibles and somethething for the Illegal Mexican $hit flavored peanut butter they sold you back in AUgust but didn't recall until February of 2007.

 

Of course you can't prove $hit since the doctor didn't order a stool sample to see what was wrong with you because of the cost to your insurance company, because your doctor wasn't aware of any salmonella peanute butter and because it's easier to simply continue overprescribing antibiotics to the point someday these bacteria are resistent. Sure you could always test the peanut butter for salmonella and make the argument that must have been what f*cked yer ass up for a week but you did what the FDA told you to do and destroyed the only thing left that could possibly tell you what knocked you on yer ass back in October.

 

Perhaps most saddening; however, is the fact you bitch about the cost to the taxpayer for taking care of other countries deformed babies but you want their mommies and daddies here picking tomatoes because trickle-up doesn't work but trickle-down does. Would you be opposed to required abortions for any guest worker about to dump a baby with problems on American soil? Or are you just here to moan and groan about the a$$hole liberals that think if the fed is just going to allow these illegals to be here for the good of corporate America at the expense of working America the government should at least pick-up the tab to take care of the kid once you require it's parent to give birth to it?

Edited February 27, 2007 by Clubfoothead

[Dr. Love]

Your insurance company wants your doctor to stuff some antibiotics down yer throat when you show up $hitting yer pants, puking all over yourself and running a 102 degree fever missing 3-5 days of work then if a 7-10 day series of that doesn't work, they think running additional tests is OK.

 

Fast forward 3 months and you find out the peanut butter you were eating was contaminated with salmonella. You throw the jar away as instructed and mail the lid back for your $5.00 refund like the FDA tells you.

 

You then wonder if maybe you had salmonella since those are all the symptoms. You are just wondering until you find out you got the salmonella because the illegal mexican that replaced Big John's neighbor in the Georgia ConAgra plant isn't in the habit of washing his hands after dropping a deuce since the water where he comes from is more unclean than his feces. So now your pissed and figure ConAgra owes you 3-5 days sick leave, your deductibles and somethething for the Illegal Mexican $hit flavored peanut butter they sold you back in AUgust but didn't recall until February of 2007.

 

Of course you can't prove $hit since the doctor didn't order a stool sample to see what was wrong with you because of the cost to your insurance company, because your doctor wasn't aware of any salmonella peanute butter and because it's easier to simply continue overprescribing antibiotics to the point someday these bacteria are resistent. Sure you could always test the peanut butter for salmonella and make the argument that must have been what f*cked yer ass up for a week but you did what the FDA told you to do and destroyed the only thing left that could possibly tell you what knocked you on yer ass back in October.

 

Perhaps most saddening; however, is the fact you bitch about the cost to the taxpayer for taking care of other countries deformed babies but you want their mommies and daddies here picking tomatoes because trickle-up doesn't work but trickle-down does. Would you be opposed to required abortions for any guest worker about to dump a baby with problems on American soil? Or are you just here to moan and groan about the a$$hole liberals that think if the fed is just going to allow these illegals to be here for the good of corporate America at the expense of working America the government should at least pick-up the tab to take care of the kid once you require it's parent to give birth to it?

 

 

Wow. Now that is a good, old-fashioned non-sequitur rant.

[H8tank]

Would you be opposed to required abortions for any guest worker about to dump a baby with problems on American soil?

 

Or feed the poor, migrant worker lil'bastard chili.