This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
How Much Does Basic Health Insurance Cost Around The World
How does one define most basic health insurance? If one is Deutsche Bank, as follows: "Health insurance annual premium is for a basic policy for a local resident between 25-35 years. Since the definition of a standard package varies between countries, we have tried to stick to an insurance policy which covers inpatient events and no extra covers like dental, etc.... The data has been sourced mainly from local providers of heath insurances, reports of organizations engaged in research of health care and news clippings."
And how much does "most basic health insurance" cost around the world? According to Deutsche Bank the answer, when presented in dollar terms, is as follows:
Clearly what the US, with its highest in the world costs, needs is for the government to step in and really fix the problem.
»
- 30779 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Sad
Bad
Very bad. The U.S. health system is considered the worst in the industrialized world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization_ranking_of_health...
yeah- that's why people flock here when they need serious medical help, because our health system is the absolute worst. I know I'd much rather die on a gurney in an UK ER than suffer through the USA's terrible medical industry.
I guess you missed the point of the article?
Fuck me, where do idiots like this find their way to ZH?
Funny how the industries dominated by the tribe always seem to end up with taxpayer money funneled their way.
Medical care is 85% more than it was from 1929 to 1970. The reason is the feds, state, and locals funnel $1.1 trillion into the industry driving up cost. Same with education.
Same with defense.
Same with the federal government.
Banking creates their own money.
What will happen is the feds will want to take over the medical industry and kill millions and millions of baby boomers, who could not vote for Social Security and Medicare.
The best hope is a dollar collapse and a regime collapse in Washington, new nations, and free medical markets. Most baby boomers have no clue what awaits them if the Washington regime maintains power.
now we get a government mandate requiring that everyone buy a bullshit overpriced product... isn't freedom wonderful?
Opie's fixing it, FFS
Back to work, Serfs
That chart doesn't include how much people pay for their health care through taxes just the direct premiums paid.
Not meaningful.
Can we see the chart that shows the number and cost of medical malpractice in those countries. Really disigeneous not to show the cost of the blood sucking leaches we call lawyers in this country, same class of people as lobbyist.
Please pee in the cup....
How does health insurance cost ANYTHING in England when everybody is on the National Health system? And if you are counting the total cost of health care in coutries like England wouldn't you have to include the council taxes people pay to support the system?
Govt healthcare fixes that, because then you have no recourse at all against malpractice.
America #1 again.
Canada spends half as many tax dollars compared to the United States
($4445 vs $8233) as of 2012:
https://secure.cihi.ca/free_products/NHEXTrendsReport2012EN.pdf
in addition to the basic insurance costing about one-sixth as much, per the article.
Here's a nice little comparison chart:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada#Comparison_to_other_c...
Funny that we weasterners think we live in the land of the free
Nothing could be further from the truth...............we are robbed right left and centre by our over spending, over paid and over educated masters who have never had to work in the real world.
Anyone who wants to figure out how bad it is just do a back-of-the-envelope calc on General Practitioner medicine.
One GP can handle 1000-2000 patients and typically earns $150-200k. Factor in an office, equipment, a nurse, nurse assistant, etc.
1500 patients @100/mo ($1200/yr) is $1.8 million gross revenue.
ObamaCare and the American Medical Mafia are killing us while making a killing.
Respectfully, not sure where you come up with your numbers, but primary care physicians make no where near your figures. Primary care physicians I am aware of in my community make more like $90-120K/year and with obamascare created hospital vertical monopolies you can bet your last dollar that the hospital bureaucrats make up to 10x what that primary care physician makes and will be doing everything in their power to drive their salaries down. Not bad considering a primary care physician goes 4 years to college, 4 years medical school and 3 years internship/residency. In my community I hear the best physicians (smartest?) after having signed on to these vertical hospital monopolies out of fear of obamascare are now leaving them.... so the hospital monopoly signs of PAs and ARNPs.... so if you go to the ER or admitted to a hospital, you are not seen and cared for by a board certified physician but a PA or ARNP with 2-3 years of schooling... now if you believe an evaluation by a PA or an ARNP is equivalent to a board certified physician then you probably think a Big Mac is the same as a steak from Ruth Chris.... that's not to say PAs and ARNPs don't have a role but the point is that they are not equivalent in education, experience, and judgement to a board certified physician with years of experience taking care of patients..... but obamascare has undermined all of that.... standing round of applause for the fudge packer in chief...
Like I said, "back-of-the-envelope".
I googled/wiki for dr/patient ratios and average GP pay.
I don't confuse McShit with Ruth Chris so FU for that. This was a comment not a post.
My point is that one can achieve primary care from a qualified doctor for a lot less than what the "fudge packer in Chief" plan offers.
I was modeling my comment on the history of what used to be called "Lodge Doctors". There, say, a union would hire one or more doctors at an annual fee to take care of all the needs of the union and family members.
ObummerCare has us all going in on gold-plated Cadilacs (some include the motor).
Thank you for stating what so many do not understand. If the free market was left to decide costs we would not be in the dire situation we are all facing. Government corruption is almost always the problem.
American exceptionalism...
American Trial lawyers......
I see folks like you keep posting this nonsense... Are trial lawyers behind the meteoric rise in tuition costs? Food costs? Gasoline? Anything else? Insurance is not rising because of overzealous lawyers nor obnoxiously large verdicts. Rather, insurance companies are taking their pound of flesh from the largest american service industry just like the banks, et al. While I've posted it ad naseum, tort reform has been happening for centuries and has reached a present cycle peak, whereby there is nothing practical left to "remedy" other than completely absolving medical professionals from any liability for their acts. Tort reform in this day and age has little to do with reform and everything to do with immunity.
True. But many lawyers still suck.
Q: What do you have when you have 500 lawyers standing in your yard?
A: Fertilizers
The truth is trial lawyers impose a hidden tax on just about every consumer product including medicine. Businessweek before it became Bloomberg week published an article about what the added cost of a consumer good showing the amount of the price comes from the lawyer tax ranging from ladders to cardiac pacemakers. Excessive and unecessary medical testing and procedures comes from an inherent concern by physicians that if the physician has not done all that was feasibly possible and, given we live in an imperfect world, and there is an unexpected outcome, they will get sued. It's not in the fore front of physician's decision making processes but if you don't think it doesn't impact medical decision making, then you still probably believe in Hope and Change by the fudge packer in chief. The medical malpractice fees for specialist physicians far, far exceeds the incomes of 90% of tax paying US citiizen serfs and peasants. And of course obamascare did not address this issue nor the fact that megahospital vertical monopoly systems and health insurance companies are reaping windfall profits from the unintended/intended consequences of obamascare on health care market forces.
And if you don't buy any of that, the first amendment is still in place, more or less, and then everyone can buy you a Big Mac and you will probably think it is from Ruth Chris..... oh, well.... keep burying your head in the sand..
Well said Macho....
The insurance industry is driving costs up!
Lookup your favorite industry/sector to see what is being spent for lobbyists
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=i
Top Spenders....
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s&showYear=a
Lookup your representatives...
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/index.php
Why do corporations have the same rights as you?
http://money.howstuffworks.com/corporation-person.htm
Government is entirely absent from the equation of course.
depends on your definition of lobbyist
Umm.. here's a news flash. The countries that pay less than half what the US does Have gov run health care.
What they don't have is health insurers in the middle billing both ends.
Well aren't we the lucky ones...................
We have BOTH!! We have gov run health care AND health insurers in the middle billing both ends!!
Not to mention regional monopolies protected by the state 4 0 competion.
.... and the quality Phoenix VA hospital care will be coming to your neighborhood soon under obamascare...
What we have is direct and indirect government involvement that drives up costs to ridiculous levels (e.g., laws that allow a an effective medical cartel in many drugs and restrains trade in pricing of medical procedures that bill to things like Medicare & Medicaid, and laws that are directly against the Constitution that require citizens to purchase 'private' 'medical insurance', etc.). Also, most, if not all, those countries you obviously believe have "gov run health care" don't (e.g., most Scandanavian countries are slowly but surely privatizing coverage mostly due to rising costs associated with so called 'gov run helathacre').
But what is also obvious is that all the other low cost industrialized countries have socialized healthcare. How can it be that the free market would be so much better than what has been successful elsewhere?
Until there are strict campaign contribution laws, there will be no healthcare cost containments. Where else on earth would a ruling body, US Congress, pass laws making it illegal to import less expensive drugs from other countries.
Government corruption. You repeat yourself.
People with money flock here. It's a bifurcation of the market, as most things in the US are. If you have tons of cash, then great, you're in, if not, you get the dregs. And the line of spend to get quality is rising.
Not only is it people with lots of money flock here but also people with no money flock here as well, such as illegal immigrants and get free medical care. Everbody else gets screwed. I should add it's "free" for the illegals.
How else would you entice the future Democrats?
Q: How many democraps does it take to change a light bulb?
A: That's not funny and you're a racissssssssss....
I was in a hospital recently, overstaffed monopoly full of feather bedding docs and nurses. Grossly overstaffed.
And hospitals are buying up small practices. Consolidating. Small practices and specialist doctor groups are selling theirselves out to larger entities with the bureaucratic might and the pull to face the onslaught of Obamacare. And hospitals can thereny charge even higher prices.
Just the opposite here. Last year my wife had emergency surgery. After she was moved from recovery into her room, couldn't find a nurse anywhere. They did not plug her BP, heart, O2, and pain medication pumps into the wall. So 15 minutes after they moved her into the room, the batteries on all these units died. I could not find any help, so I plugged them in.
When her O2 was low and that alarm was going off, not a soul to be found anywhere. So I just figured out how to silence the alarms and would increase her O2 flow when required. All up and down the hall, all you could here was monitors blaring. Her BP monitor stopped working correctly. When a nurse did appear to check her vitals and the monitor did not work, she had to go find someone who knew how to take a BP with a stethoscope. Would be real easy for someone to die in that place.
The surgeon showed up to check on her 3 DAYS after the surgery.
This is the soft underbelly of the medical sector. You outsource primary care functions to lesser and lesser qualified personnel and hope that the patients aren't dead from even the most rudimentary treatment. You want some staph with that flu?
This is the reason the medical lobby has to come out against med mal and keep the "tort reform" torch ablaze... they need immunity from suit or else they won't be able to continue in business at their current profit levels because they won't be able to actually provide a reasonable level of care. Practically no different than too big to fail or jail, but with a bit different approach. All the efforts of a doctor making a couple hundred bucks an hour can be offset by an idiot making minimum wage who doesn't give a shit... You would think it would create incentive for hospitals to hire better professionals and train them more, but it will only end in a lobbied savior.
We keep getting less cereal in the same size boxes and medical services aren't any different...
The one valid argument for old people to establish residency abroad is for the more accessible health care, often at quality-levels equivalent to or even better than the USA. The US healthcare system is totally screwed.
And it cannot be easily fixed.
Hospital costs: private/semi-private rooms in the US vs. ward-type in rest of world. Those are sunk capital costs.
Drugs: the pharma companies make up for cost controls in the rest of the world by over-charging in the US. Perhaps it would be better if other nations didn't subsidize drug costs - that would be the ideal from a libertarian viewpoint - but the reality is they do and we pay for it. How likely is that to change?
Physicians, surgeons, specialists: again, it's built-in folks, not going to change. Decades of disincentives for cost containment (mostly medical insurance) have created a cost structure that's extremely resistent to change. If it was proposed overnight that doctors take an across-the-board 15% reduction in their fees, what do you think would happen? Revolt at the ballot-box.
It's not just health-care. We live in a system where nothing moves, nothing changes. Until there's a blood-running-in-the-streets revolution, nothing changes. That's the reality.
Wife's daughter is an RN who works in one of the burgeoning hospital vertical monopolies... she always talks about the hospital laying off nurses and those with hands on taking care of patients but I never hear of all the bureaucrats running around who push papers and go to meetings getting layed off.... I also never hear of the big shots in the hospital bureaucracy getting laid off or taking pay reductions.... I also see them building new bricks and mortar all over town.... all that expense costs so if anyone goes to the hospital they can expect a giant bill.... a friend's wife had an MRI scan at the hospital and received a bill for $4400.00; had she gone to an independent office with an MRI scan it probably would have been $1200-1400 or less (at least in my community). Obamscare is driving all care to the hospital where in my experience it is always much, much more expensive and not necessarily better....
propaganda does wonders for the sick care industry. even with a gun to my head, I would fight to stay out of a U.S. hospital.
Why are you planning to going to VA facility?
When you say that "people" flock here when they need serious medical help...you mean really rich people, right?
Such as canadians.
Canadian people I mean. Canadian dogs, cats, and horses can get an MRI immediately up there. Veterinarians are private businesses up there, supplying care on demand at prices the market will bear.
People who need an MRI scan that is not an emergency in Canada are put on a waiting list and can wait up to a year or more to get the scan they need...... thanks to obamascare, it's coming to a neighborhood near you soon....
in 2008 60k-85k people came to the US for in-patient medical care. That same year 750k Americans went to other countries for in-patient care, up from 500k in 2006
Yeah and prolly 75% from Mexico. People die in MExico for idiotic reasons. If I got sick in Mexico I would fly home to USSA. I had a kidney stone - two tubes up my weiner and a scan of my kidneys was $6,000. Reeedickulous
from the study - 38% from Latin America, 35% from the Middle East, 16% from Europe and 7% from Canada
Who down arrowed me - mofo! Any Mexican with money heads to Tejas for surgery. Mexico is a pretty country with incredibly stoopid, uneducated people. The education system is basically non-existent... the medical care is scary since 1/2 the doctors are retarded. I have to say it now b/f telling the truth is hate speech
Yes the US is probably the best place to be for ER situations but otherwise doctors are nothing but scipt writers for big pharma companies. Fat, lazy and willingly ignorant Americans put up with it all because it's easier to wash down some pills than change their lifestyles and actually solve the medical issues that they are having.
The U.S. is pretty good with leading-edge/new treatments in some area, and that's what people come here for.
For regular every day medical care, it's the opposite: there is a big medical tourism industry where Americans go abroad to get procedures done for fractions of what they would pay here at the same or better standard of care. The standard of normal medical care here isn't anything spectacular, it's OK (the 4th leading cause of death in the US is iatrogenic death - stay the fuck out of hospitals). I
n my personal opinion it's not even that good because everything revolves around selling drugs and operations. I've never escaped from a doctor visit without a prescription for some antibiotics, and one of my siblings with thyroid problems has been to several docs who show no interest in actually making it better, but recommend operating and cutting it out and immediately setting up a surgery appointment...on the first consultation!!
I live in Malaysia. If you flock anywhere, you flock to Singapore, you dumb American slob.
Yes it's stunning. US citizens have tremendous high medical bills and incredible insurance costs and when they need it, the insurance companies often find excuses why it's not covered by the insurance, but they still defend their capitalist system.
But Rockefeller said it openly: Capitalism is about creating monopolies. Competition is sin.
Not my words, but from the top insider.
But they still manage somehow to make the non-left sheeple demand more of these "free markets", because they hate the Marxist Obamacare system. As if there would be no third way!
Classical two-party binary game, where a real alternative is kept out of the discussion.
If you think the U.S. healthcare system is a capitalistic system, I have a bridge I'd like to sell to you...
Healtcare in this country hasn't been a capitalistic endevour since the 1960s.
The Communists also said that the existing Communism was not the real Communism...
You should listen what Rockefeller, a true Capitalist, said: Competition is sin. Capitalism is about creating monopolies.
Outrageous!
Why ist that?
Because if you would be businessman that would not need to be explained: you would know that competition is YOUR problem, and you love being the only one in the business!
A friend is a corporate officer in a health insurance company in the midwest. He tells me repeatedly that they are an investment company and not in the business of providing health care... he says health care costs are just a line item expense like the bricks and mortar, lights, heating etc etc. Their goal is to keep all costs down. They take the premiums and invest the money to get a return. His health insurance company lost money in 2012 and the CEO got a $15M bonus.... obamascare creates more windfall profits for health insurance companies by letting them charge higher premiums, jacking up deductibles up to $12K and tightening the screws on what they cover.... conveniently the elected turds in Washington DC have voted to exempt themselves from obamascare.....
The WHO judges health care systems predominantly by the overall health of the citizens in that country, which isn't a good measure IMO. Americans have poor health because they eat crap and won't exercise. That's not the fault of the health system.
WHO: a bunch of bureaurcratic people who don't take care of patients who tell people who take care of patients who to take care of patients.
The USA is a very ethnically and racially diverse and very large country. Japan on the other hand is a pretty big country that's very fucking ethnically and racially non diverse. It might be instructive to to compare health outcomes of pure bred japanese raised in America to the population of Japan. Or, hell, swedes here versus there. I'd be particularly amused to see Congolese here versus there. Or Egyptians or Mongolians or pacific islanders. Otherwise, who gives a fuck about WHOse criteria, when WHO is an arm of a club of GOVERNMENTS, which are institutionally rather beholden to government anything and everything.
The system works perfectly, you just don't understand it:
Poor health is a revenue generator!
In backward times that was called satanic and the autocratic rulers protected the stupid mass from these intelligent criminals.
But the satanic forces managed to make the stupid mass believe it was clever and intelligent and it began to overthrow their leaders. Now the sheeple are without any protection and are sinking deeper and deeper into the satanic NWO, while they demand even more "freedom".
But the problem is not the lack of freedom. The problem is the stupidity of the masses and that they do not recognize that they are incapable to overcome these forces on their own, that they need leaders that guide them.
The US healthcare system has the best doctors and best technologies in the world. And assuming you can pay in cash you will receive immediate treatment.
However, for anyone in the insurance system (either private, obamacare, or Medicare/Medicaid), the treatment options range anywhere from mediocre to shitty.
It's important to be clear on this distinction. There is a reason people with means come here from all over the world for treatment.
It is a totally fucked up system, but don't confuse that with the level of care that is theoretically possible.
Oh yeah. Don't believe a single thing that WHO says about anything.
Pardon my ignorance, why is this number so high in the USA? I don't know, really. It's an honest question.
any ideas?
because americans are fat, lazy and love their pills and surgeries.
because the sick care industry in the U.S. is a fascist orgy.
Devotional
The problem is the feds, state, and locals pay the industry $1.1 trillion a year, driving up cost.
The second problem is what is referred to as third party payer. The average health care consumer pays 12 cents on the dollar so naturally they demand the best care, more test, and luxuries that if they were paying for it themselves they would skip.
The combination of subsidies and hidden cost have created high cost and excess demand.
Hope that helps.
More simply put, the consumer is made insensitive to the cost by the payment system. Started under FDR regime control freak price and wage controls during WWII.
And instituted again under that liberal icon Richard Nixon:
President Nixon Imposes Wage and Price Controls
August 15, 1971. In a move widely applauded by the public and a fair number of (but by no means all) economists, President Nixon imposed wage and price controls. The 90 day freeze was unprecedented in peacetime, but such drastic measures were thought necessary. Inflation had been raging, exceeding 6% briefly in 1970 and persisting above 4% in 1971. By the prevailing historical standards, such inflation rates were thought to be completely intolerable.
http://www.econreview.com/events/wageprice1971b.htm
Control freaky sociopathy is not isolated to the Democrat party, alas.
Because you get what you pay for, the best healthcare in the world, with quality and expertise expected to rise further under obamacare!
Seriously, its because health care professions salaries drive costs up, particularly nursing pay. Nurses have a very powerful union. Its like the pink mafia. These rises are unjustifiable and unsustainable. Also, prices for hospital supplies were jacked up for years under managed care because the insurance companies got stingy on reimbursements.
I doubt obozocare will cheapen costs, because hospitals will figure out how to game the system in their favor (ie survive) no matter what. and since when is the govt good at regulating anything as large and complicated as u.s. healthcare? Hows their regulation of the financial system going? How about the epa?
You doubt ObomberCare will cut costs. No shit Sherlock - the healthcare lobby wrote the bill - I have les scoverage for higher costs. I am thinking of just dropping out and paying the penalty. I hold nothing in my name - of course the next step is for unpaid medical bills to go directly to the IRS for bank account raids.
But supply will increase to match demand, thanks to Obamacare which drives down the price for millions of new consumers. Amnesty will help too, because more demand from 15million people suddenly made insensitive to the price of care will magically cause supply to increase even more, by decree.
note that in most of the european countries listed there, there is a "National Health Care". a fully statist, socialist health care run by a ministry of the state
question is: how is it possible that socialists can compete in this business? and don't tell me that Britons, for example, have a completely disastrous health care system
nope, imho there is a simple answer: corruption
How do project the state will perform providing free services in 10 years from now? 20? Europe is going the way of the planet Miranda. Government services are failing and will fail entirely with the demographic collapse of the native populations of Europe.
ghordius, you forget a few other things that set apart the entire US and EU member countries, which influences overall healthcare access and cost:
is that bad ???
American Medial Association artifically limits the number of prospective doctors who can study medicine. AMA accreditation increases the cost of education astronomically. Fewer doctors = higher wages. It's like a union; the people inside benefit at the expense of everyone else.
Also, physicians will order every test and procedure that insurance will pay for, whether needed or not.
elephant said, "whether needed or not".
That is correct, but who needs what?
The patient doesn't always need the test, but the doctor needs protection from a "sue them" happy public and attorneys who will jump at anything.
Clearly there is a requirement for proper medical care and when someone screws up, then they SHOULD pay.
But a case where a test is not done (that would not have prevented a death or disability) and a doctor is sued, part of the evidence against him/her is that they did NOT perform that test.
The doctors are only performing CYA. If there were real tort reform in the US a lot of those unnecessary costs would go away.
The doctor NEEDS the test more than the patient.
the oath is to do no harm... the fine print says to doc's liability exposure so order every fucking test and cover the doc's ass. The healthcare system was broken and ACA just made it worse. Fucking Obomber is such a tool - he had a mandate and backing of preople that didnt even vote for him to change shit.
You're both wrong regarding the reason behind ordering unnecessary tests and procedures. Let's ask this question before blaming some ancillary issue with liabiltiy: if a doctor orders an unnecessary test, does the doctor have to pay the cost of that test out of pocket or does he order it in situations when he expects to get paid? Answer this and you'll answer why the tests are run.
PS, universally, any limitation of liability or risk exposure is born by the party at risk.
Dear MM
My wife is a retired nurse, but worked many years in an urban hospital. Urban patients and family members constantly threatened suits, and oh by the way, threatened discrimination suits at the same time....all the while they were already recieving "free" healthcare. My wife was threatened with physical violence on many occasions for not getting things done on their timetable. They thought they were the only ones on the floor and expected royal treatment.
I cannot speak to the experience of others in suburban or rural hospitals, but for those people in the urban setting, tests were run to ensure that could not be held up as evidence of malpractice.
Thanks for listening
OD
Complete nonsense. Your wife, as a nurse, was following her employer's protocol. Her employer told her that she was to perform various tests in certain situations. In the event there is a question about whether to perform a test, the default is to perform the test. The problem is that your wife lacked the motivation to question the narrative placed by her employer (her pay was dependent upon her not questioning it). In short, medical professionals wouldn't perform a test if they didn't make money from it. So while your wife is likely busy billing the shit out of indigents for her government sucking employer, she's at the same time blaming the entire scenario on the prospect of malpractice.... Your wife was well versed by her employer on the reimbursement rates for each payer source (insurance) and it was her job to maximize income for the facility.
I appreciate your anecdotes, but I work for her employer on occasion (or at least numerous of its twins)... if you think that she was running unnecessary tests due to the risk of malpractice (from people who can't spell the word), then I've got a bridge to sell you. Rather, blaming lawyers is the convenient thing medical professionals have to do to remain in denial and/or sleep at night. The simple fact is that medical professionals are generally completely ignorant of how a malpractice suit works (it's an incredibly difficult standard), but get relentlessly "advised" by insurance companies or their lackeys about the prospects. The narrative of malpractice avoidance is born out of convenience rather than reality.
Think about how insurance billing has evolved just over the last few years. You now get a detailed explanation of benefits (EOB), in short order from the time you saw a doctor. Why do you think the insurance company sends you this? In part, it is to shame you from unnecessary services (by showing you the costs) and to attempt to get you to notify the insurance provider in the event you believe some test or procedure was unnecessary or failed to occur. It even likely requests for you to contact in insurance company in the event of any abnormalities (reading between the lines, please let us know any possible place where we could recoup our reimbursements). The problem of course is that no one gives a shit until they actually have to pay for the service, so it has some fundamental problems.
Let's make a wager. I'll posit that if patients actually have to pay for these tests, then medical professionals will stop doing them. The consent to run tests only occurs due to the patient having no skin in the game.
PS, med mal cases where there was a failure to test are rare (it's impossible to prove and the patient likely consented to avoid the test)... rather, med mal cases are vastly more often where a surgeon leaves a pair of scissors in the person after stitching him back together, or chops off the wrong foot, or cuts an artery during surgery and the patient bleeds out... by running the additional tests, medical professionals are allegedly attempting to avoid something that is incredibly unlikely to bite them. Again, it's a bullshit narrative to attempt to give plausible deniability to what practically amounts to insurance fraud.
You are a pompous douche, there are also negligence suits in addition to malpractice.
I'm not sure that filling the vending machines at a few local hospitals qualifies your false expertise.
It's good that you can actually address anything of substance in my post... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
Your condescending tone made it difficult to find anything of substance in your post.
You are right that the cost of malpractice insurance is coming down, but there are still negligence cases which are much easier to prove. Insurance companies view them as nuisances best settled out of court.
And from the hospital's perspective, why not perform tests that probably aren't necessary? It's a bit of CYA and will make money overall when the markup is 1000%. They have the productive capacity, why not put it to work? Hospitals have been corporatized, the bean counters know what they're doing.
And from the hospital's perspective, why not perform tests that probably aren't necessary? It's a bit of CYA and will make money overall when the markup is 1000%. They have the productive capacity, why not put it to work? Hospitals have been corporatized, the bean counters know what they're doing.
It took you this many posts and bitching to just tell me I'm right? The reason why hospitals shouldn't do it is because they're getting paid for these services from my pocket... but don't take my word for it, the free lunch lasts forever.
You're also acting like every claim made against a medical practitioner is false... I'm sure that hospitals find it annoying that they have to adhere to a standard of care... hint: the policy behind negligence is to require them to adhere to a standard of care... historically, liability is the most efficient effectuator of positive change.
So it's your thesis that insurance companies don't bother to investigate claims against their insureds? That they don't care even though the money comes straight from their pocket? "nuissance" cases are slang for "nothing." They pay nothing... You have to preface your comments with a bit of context as well, considering a small fraction of the patient population ever attempts to sue their professional... in short, you're arguing the exception and not the rule... and on top of it, the vast majority of those cases are for peanuts to indigents and sorry assed ambulance chasers.
Hey MachoMan what hospital have you been to? You get no itemized bills in California. You get only dozens and dozens of demands to pay for "charge codes" that you insurance doesn't allow. You call your insurance company and they say they'll cover it but the bills keep coming and you call the billing hospital and they don't know anything except that you owe money. The bills keep coming for years and finally you get a collection agency and no-one will tell you what you owe money for. The systems sucks.
actually, you are wrong, particularly with regard to medicare/medicaid patients. In the real world, they are thinking "let's make sure" and secondly "I don't want to get sued/fired."
Your thesis would hold if primary and urgent care docs benefitted financially each time some old fuck gets an mri of their ankle on your dime.
As to limitation of liability, I don't know for sure, but I'm willing to bet that there are enough exceptions under state law, contract law, failure to warn, or just the practical equities that claiming "universality" is wrong, or at least wildly inaccurate.
Do you deny that each test and procedure performed by the medical professional has a contracted reimbursement rate? You say people aren't benefitting, but you're skating over the top of a very deep hole.
Medicare and medicaid patients are primarily the patients that get wrung through the medical pinball machine. In many instances they have more benefits than someone under private insurance, because private insurance wouldn't pay for the procedures/tests or the medical provider sets up numerous ancillary services (e.g. case workers, etc.) that private insurance wouldn't pay for...
Again, you're telling me what's going through someone's head when they're ordering these tests, while at the same time they're pecuniarily benefitting from the order. You say that there is no incentive on the part of the professional, since they don't see the marginal profit, but what about their paycheck? What about company policy to run certain tests in the event person Y comes in and complains of symptom X? Corporate culture? You act like ethics and quality of care are hallmarks of the medical professional, but urgent care docs who are commanded to see 70 patients in a day probably haven't heard of that... or who have been on a 72 hour shift... etc.
I could see medical professionals having a leg to stand on if they didn't charge for the additional testing. The problem is that they do and it is a huge source of income. Further, few want to step in and call a bullshit fraud to it all since the medical industry is simply another arm of the social safety net. The government's auditors suck shit through a straw and generally only crack heads every once and a long while. The entities and their employees generally have plausible deniability for the tests, since there is arguably a medical purpose... so criminal liability is few and far between. This is how costs get out of control... and when it comes time to lay the blame on the party making all the money from it, people want to blame someone else (e.g. lawyers).
PS, in general, anyone who wants to limit his exposure or risk has to pay for his own hedge (e.g. insurance). In the case of the medical industry, they actually get paid for hedging. Ponder that incentive. [presuming you even want to call running the tests hedging... the hedging was already done with the purchase of insurance... at this point, they're just back to making money again].
And the patient is insensitive to the price of the test
this is the heart of the whole shooting match... if people had to pay for their own medical expenses, then unnecessary procedures wouldn't be employed... of course, the entire industry would default given its prices are locked in due to decades of capital malinvestment, but I digress.
And that is why virtually EVERY primary care provider is Pakistani or Indian in the U.S.
The docs dont make a decent wage anymore. Insurance kills them. The customary practice in a growing number of states is for them to band together come malpractice time and refuse to offer professional testimony against each other in lawsuits. Good luck hiring an expert to back you in court. Its pretty fucked up everywhere you look in the world.
Have we reached Peak Lawyer yet? Hopefully it isn't a permanent high plateau.
Many docs don't make what they used to (e.g. heart surgeons), but many still make spectacular wages. [this is simply a function of being able to quickly follow the changing reimbursement structures from insurance companies, e.g. I know a heart surgeon who moved to being just a general surgeon on non-life threating issues and makes a pretty penny more than he did as a heart surgeon].
I do accounting work for quite a few doctors and small to medium sized, general medical practices and their med mal premiums are practically nothing ($500-$1000/mo.), even for guys who work the E.R... My wife is a medical professional with her own practice and her insurance is less than $100/mo... It's just like everything else... you need to shop your insurance every couple of years... it's a negotiation like everything else in life. I find that doctors are often terrible at managing the costs of their practice... a few phone calls could save one thousands of dollars.
If you want to know what kills doctors' wages, it's the consolidation of medical corporations and the crowding out of smaller practices. For some reason, every small practitioner desperately wants to sell out to the local hospital group... It's great at first, but they will grind the life out of you. In the end, you'll make less and work more... and an administrator, that does nothing but shake hands and kiss babies, will make 10x your salary. This is what kills doctors' wages. (same for professors vs. school administrators).
PS, it's rare for any cases to go to trial, especially med mal. The reason is that if liability isn't cut and dry, then you'll have a hard time getting any decent lawyer to take it. If liability is cut and dry, then the insurer is going to be playing ball on a settlement... marginal med mal cases are a good place for lawyers to lose their asses and look like idiots in the process. It's already an incredibly difficult standard.
RE: Medical Malpractice
Another lawyer is a lawyer's best friend.
Another doctor is a doctor's worst enemy.
I don't hear about malpractice premiums decreasing among doctors I know... rather going up.
Indiana state has the best malpractice solution IMHO: dollar damage award amounts are capped and all claims go first to a three physician expert panel to review the facts of the case and to determine if the case has merit to be taken to court. I bet the Indiana malpractice lawyers hate that or have moved to more lucrative malpractice award states.
Dollar damage caps for compensatory damages are expressly unconstitutional for many states (but that never stops the medical lobby from getting laws passed). The reasoning is centuries old, namely that anyone should be liable for the damages they cause. Punitive damages, on the other hand, have already been capped by the SCOTUS for due process reasons (note: this affects every lawsuit in the country).
I find it incredibly strange that indiana would choose to cap compensatory damages... I'm also curious about insurance rates in indiana... I suspect they're not too dissimilar from neighboring states with unlimited liability for medical practitioners.
PS, most states have passed "tort reform"... the most recent wave was in the 1970s... but tort reform in america has been raging since our inception... the railroads were very successful at limiting their tort liability for a little while, but most folks got pretty fed up at what that incentivized them to do in regard to safety... this prompted many states to pass constitutional provisions prohibiting the limitation of damage awards... provisions that are promptly forgotten by legislators when the medical lobby comes with its checkbook.
you've got it half right...
not just "fewer doctors = higher wages", but also
extremely high debt from med. education = demand for high wages to pay off the debt
Because it's way more advanced than other countries. Which explains why many top althetes are doing off season procedures abroad. Wait... did I fuck that up?
Makes sense that there would be some high end surgery boutiques being set up in the Caribbean for example.
Because of a few factors:
1.) American Medical Association (AMA) and Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) tightly control requirements for college admission, which schools get accredited, etc.
2.) Medical Insurance companies have MONOPOLY protection - in some states insurance companies dominate 75pc or more of market share.
3.) Medical Technology companies, medical services. There's 2 major ones here (Siemens, GE), all other companies are much smaller. It's a monopoly in itself.
4.) Pharmaceutical companies. Despite the class action lawsuit of the 1990s against these companies (which were mostly dismissed, some settled), they are a tight group of oligopolies that are still continuing to merge. They lobby the most money out of any sector in Washington for all sorts of protections.
It's all corrupt to the core.
Corrupt, but sanctioned and policed by your loving public servants in the legislatures and administrative bureaucracies. Tabula rasa, anyone? The original colonists revolted over far, far less from King George.
it has less to do with corruption of a few government bureaucrats, doctors, associations, and healthcare companies.
rather, it has much more to do with the apathetic, two-party controlled american citizen.
america has no real socialist party. the democrats in the us are actually an equivalent of a centre-right party in europe.
if america would actually just bring on real "socialism" as per continental european standards, then life would get a lot better for the masses.
This analysis is amateurish in the extreme. In most countries medical education is heavily state-supported -- even free. In the US doctors pay out of pocket and must recoup the costs over their lifetime earnings. Also, the medical establishment established strict training requirements in the name of quality that effectively serve to limit supply. Also, many governments negotiate large drug and other supplies orders which are let at very low margin. No such in the US, so effectively we provide all the profits for these co's. Also, the US does virtually all drug and device R&D and so we bear that cost as well.
As pointed out elsewhere, there is very heavy government subsidy of medical services, with many recipients paying close to nothing, not unlike some other systems, but there is no allocation mechanism to limit this give-away, so government health costs run away. Additionally, employer-supplied healthcare has been heavily subsidized by the employer (for large co's) and there is little incentive for any of these patients (including the ones with gov't provided care) to cost-shop or push-back on the costs. Indeed, most people don't even look at their benefits vs. billings to see what the actual cost was.
An additional factor is inflationary policies of government. Medical providers are a scarce resource, and in an inflationary environment they are able to command wages to cover or exceed inflation. The effect is that inflation raises costs for everyone but only raises wages for scarce labor.
In the US (prior to Obamacare) one could have coverage that allowed one to see any physician, generally without a referral, and in a few weeks or less. Few in the US realize that in other parts of the world long waits and denial of service are the norm for the masses -- the wealthy can always skirt the system. The Democrats are in power and passed Obamacare, and all the warnings are coming true -- it's a disaster. The Dems think they can "fix" it. They can't and won't. We will witness the destruction of the finest healthcare system in the world -- the one that funds virtually all the R&D and develops most all new procedures. This will end, slowly, and few will notice, because the innovation not pursued is invisible. The Dems feel that socialized medicine is "fairer" but they either ignore are or ignorant of the serious inequities of many socialized systems.
There's no question the US healthcare industry was and is in need of restructuring, if for no other reason than that costs simply can't escalate to the sky. But the notion that "government know best" is ludicrous in the extreme. Few outside the US realize the strength of the states vs. the federal government. This is designed into the Constitution and has been wildly successful. Washington will try to impose its will on the country, but the fights will continue. The full force of the Obamacare bureaucracy is designed to hit after the 2016 presidential election -- how convenient! There will be over 200 control board set up to dictate every detail of medical practice -- with NO accountability!
The US healthcare system will become two-tiered -- like many worldwide. Look for the rise of medical tourism, especially in S. America and Mexico in particular. And expect it to take at least a decade to settle down. And be worse than what we had.
Thanks, Siena. +1
Obamacare = SCAM
And Obamacare will only make it worse
Profiteering from misery.
There's a theme going on here.
Aren't the US debt serfs the fattest in the world? Not surprising that health insurance would be so high with such high risks?!
Yes I know that even so they are ripping the US sheeple off
No the Mexicans are - but many of them live her, so you are not entirely wrong.
Hopefully, at some point, they'll be too fat to cross the border. Then, the Rio Grande will be littered with half submerged hoverrounds.
HMOs and PPOs were government's first forway into the world of Government managed healthcare, since those days the care has gotten worse and more expensive. The "cure" was to have government manage it more through ACA.
It reminds me of what Peter Schiff said years ago. Something to the effect of "Government is the only entity that brreaks a man's legs, gives him crutches, and then goes on TV to talk about how they helped this man to walk."
Timely....... just had my gall bladder removed last night here in Bangkok for about 10 G
......what a sucky way to spend a vacation
If there was nothing wrong with it, I would have sold it for much more.
Nope I pretty much fucked it with all my clean north american livin....
just thankful i wasn't back home I'd a been left on the curb for the roving dogpacks.....
thanks Obama Love ya man........ love your plan.......... you bone smokin halfbreed
I can't really speak to medical stuff or Bangkok...but I can report that this winter I took two trips down to Mexico and had 12 crowns, a filling and one extraction done. Including plane tickets, it cost about what two crowns cost down the street at the dentist office. I'll never have anything done here except cleaning, fillings and emergency stuff. Can't afford it. And this is flyover country.
What will you do if one or two of the crowns goes south on you?
I'm at a loss for words, because I know it only gets worse from here.
patient, heal thyself...
honestly, this is the best way. no sarcasm.
But thinnk of all of the lost sick care jobs if people were healthy.
A government created variant of the Broken Window Fallacy?
Isn't it obvious that we, exceptional America, are the only ones who are right, and everyone else is wrong? This is why countries like Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland are socialist hell-holes, while we have the highest rate of child poverty in the developed world. We also lead all developed nations in prisoner population percentage.
If only the other nations would learn to hate their minorities enough to punish them with rotten health care, they could pay as much as we do. Fortunately, America will remain a shining example of cruel and stupid policy for decades to come. Maybe the rest of the world will eventually learn from us how to pay more for health care and get less .
Hilarious that you cite Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland and then blame it all on American hatred for minorities. What a diverse population those countries have.
@johann
Don't the stats for either Norway or Swtzerland but indigenous swedes should be extinct in about 30 years at the current rate that they are on. Sweden has been bent on suicide by over immigration for quite some time now. Kind of like US.
Sweden has a few muslim cities now. No go zones for uncovered women. Diversity and multicultural sensitivity paradises, these dying European statelets.
These countries have been importing assorted 3rd world ghetto-trash for a while now but compared to the U.S. they are still pretty homogeneous.
If you want an example of a country that has large and deeply rooted ethnic minorities from crappy places, think of European countries that used to have large colonial empires until a few decades ago...e.g. England, France, Holland
We tried the socialism thing to change Chicago, Detroit, Camden, and other liberal oases into a Sweden.
We got Somalias instead.
It's not government. It's culture.
When a population is generally hard working and honest, no problem.
Notice how you did not mention other Euro socialist paradises like Spain, Italy, Greece, Ireland, etc. in your "why can't we be like them" rant.
When even a slightly significant minority that is looking for perpetual handouts come along or corrupt....look out below.
@dingleberry
Funny thing it also changed Sweden into Samolia. Even has the same people as Mogadishu now.
I beg to differ: America will NOT remain a "shining example" of anything for decades to come. Sadly, America isn't going to be around that long.
The US Constitution is older than those of the seven biggest European continental countries' age COMBINED. I think only Canada(not a terribly populous country) and nominally the UK have us beat, but then the UK sort of doesn't have a Constitution per se, and has warped into something unrecognizable to the ancient vision of the place you can read out if the Magna Carta, which is super fucking old. Not as old as the foundations of the Catholic Church, but on a par with the Weinstefan brewery in Bavaria.
Nordic countries as a whole have very small and sparse populations. There are entire US states larger than Sweden for crying out loud. Every time I hear someone try to compare the US to a country with 8 million or fewer people and an area roughly equivalent to a single US state, I can't help but roll my eyes.
Speaking of Norway, they are loaded with oil. I don't think it's a surprise they're doing well when it's one of their main exports and oil is over $100 a barrel. It's hard to screw up socialism when you have the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world.
" It's hard to screw up socialism when you have the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world."
You'd be surprised how retarded government can get. Venezuela has more oil than Saudi Arabia, but that country is so fucked that it's almost unbelievable. Venezuela is like that guy who wins the powerball 100 million dollar lottery and somehow loses ALL of it within 5 years.
@spungo
Another shining example of that is Mexico which is one of the most natural resource rich nations in the world. Obviously it is easy to screw up socialism. Norweagans are clearly better managers of wealth..
What do those other countries do differently?
Maybe we could do it like NZ does it?
Well, for starters, they probably don't charge $150 for a fucking aspirin.
Or $100 per unit of lactated Ringer's solution... Non-profit + hospital, owl and a bungee cord!
Maybe it's just a matter of perspective.
Think about how limiting these other systems are on the potential for profit. Our American system creates the highest pharmaceutical and insurance profits in the world. We're actually doing it better than those other countries.
.
Misleading -There's a good reason for the cost - Every aspirin has to be personally inspected by a team of health care professionals and doctors, and tested by the lab in a quality assurance program that makes sure it is the best goddamed aspirin on the Planet.
It has to be that way because a bunch of goddamed lawyers are trying to hold doctors and hopitals accountable for 120,000 patients killed by their negligence every year. People die -get over it.
Hardly...
It has to be that way because a bunch of goddamed lawyers are trying to hold doctors and hopitals accountable for 120,000 patients killed by their negligence every year. People die -get over it.
And this folks is what "tort reform" is really all about... tort immunity...
It might be that the culture in those countries require a person to work when you are able and not because you do not feel like working. The pig out at the tax payers expense with carrying costs of the health care for 14+ million illegals may have something to do with it. Just maybe...
So get rid of the Mexicans and welfare moms and then we could have socialized, nearly free health care like New Zealand?
Who patrols the high seas on behalf of every free-ish country on the planet and for most of the dictatorships too? Fucking koala fellating bungee jumping peacenik welfare monkeys. They didn't deserve a hero like Frodo. They deseve Sauron.
It all began with the co-pay mentality. Then the notion that healthcare is some sort of birth right. Going to the doc for a runny nose was unheard of back in the day. But for $10 co-pay, why not? Maybe he can write a scrip for Prozac or Ambian while you're there.