Hospitals shutting down, unable to stay financially afloat

Again incorrect, the U.S. is at the top of R&D.

Do some research outside of CNN and MSNBC.

 

This is textbook communist revolution. Intentionally break the system to manufacture justification of a radically new one.

 

Because “the government” DOES manage to do that in every other country

What it DOES take though is commitment to elect people who are not corporate shills pandering to vested interests

 

Keep yours.

Hands off ours though.

Houston had the largest medical center in the world...so yeah we ain’t doing so bad

 

Nice charts but you have ignored the quota limits and waiting times for needed care in those countries, keep your healthcare and you ideas but don't request we follow you down that sewer pipe.

 

Again incorrect

You are fast being overtaken by virtually everyone else

one area that you are waaaaay behind in are things like national guidelines. I discovered this whilst researching why your maternal mortality rate is so high. Here in my little state in Aus the government put money into developing guidelines for care based on what we call “best practice” which means that wherever possible you use not just one research paper but an amalgam of multiple papers. Not always possible because some aspects of care cannot be researched so we rely on “consensus” I.e. what the majority of practitioners think is good practice

https://www.health.qld.gov.au/qcg/publications

All practitioners are strongly encouraged to follow these guidelines

it puts everyone on the same page even if you are working at a single nurse station at Bedourie (Though they also rely on the Primary Clinical Care Manual - we have a lot of sparsely populated areas)

it stops “Cowboy” medicine where one practitioner decides to do his own thing regardless

We are also a long way down the road to a COVID vaccine, have just introduced a saliva test to augment the nasal swab test for COVID etc

don’t forget that the HOV vaccine was developed here

 

And your waiting times in the time of COVID?
Show me the waiting time differences - ooops! That is right you can’t because America does not keep that information

 

Really, how many of your personal injury attorneys are putting doctors out of business, how many of your emergency rooms are filled with gang bangers or their victims, you are not the U.S. and clueless of what is it like to be here, so take you ideas and please keep them in your country, because they would never work here

 

Well...yeah.

If your health care is going to be private for-profit, then they will become susceptible to market forces in the same manner as all other businesses.

And if they are poorly run without any savings, then they won't be able to survive an economic smash like Covid.

Maybe they can look to Texas, Florida or Arizona for some patients to fill the empty beds....?

 

We’ll see that is the thing

with a UHC a you rarely need a personal lawyer as a) no one is truly willing to fight city hall. B) we have other avenues for redress such as the healthcare ombudsman C) there are no big medical bills fuelling The need for lawsuits and d) most people who have been truly harmed are more interested in ensuring it does not happen again

my state has a thing called “Ryan’s Rule” only applies to State run hospitals but if you think your relative is not getting the best care you can escalate and ask for and get an independent review of the case

We have a free medivac system where if you are at somewhere like Birdsville and you break a leg then you will be flown free of charge to the nearest hospital with an Orthopod AND a member of family will be provided with funding to travel to accompany you as escort

Do you have that?

 

Big does not equal best

America has been falling behind slowly for years

There is still a lot of “for profit” research but little that will not bring profit

 

No and the personal injury attorney system will never allow that to happen.

You don't live here and have no clue as to how our systems work this is not down under and cannot be compared no matter how you try and that has been explained to you many times, but you refuse to get that through your head.

This is from 2004and it has only gotten worse since then, does your country have a problem like this, if not take you ideas and fade away.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3015496/

The US Medical Liability System—A System in Crisis
Michael S. Kavic, MD, Editor-in-Chief
Author information Copyright and License information Disclaimer
The United States health care system has been a role model for the rest of the world, but an unparalleled rise in health care costs has threatened the availability of affordable health care to a large segment of US society. Many reasons exist as to why this crisis has come to pass: an aging population, an outdated Medicare program, Medicare cuts, lack of affordable health insurance, and a sluggish domestic economy have all had an effect on health care costs. But one of the most important factors in the spiraling cost of health care has been excessive medical litigation.

In general, Americans probably spend more per person for litigation costs than people of any other country. This has carried over into the field of medicine with excessive awards in medical litigation. Those of us actually delivering care are very well aware that fear of potential litigation has, in many circumstances, been the determining factor in ordering costly medical tests and interventions. Fear of potential legal liability—not patient history, not physical findings, not experience or diagnostic impression, but fear of being sued—has fostered the practice of “defensive medicine.” This fact is so patently obvious that probably only the trial lawyer's bar would deny that increases in multimillion-dollar jury awards have contributed to defensive medicine. Every test, every intervention, every procedure has a cost, and someone has to pay that cost.

In many instances, defensive medicine by physicians is being practiced to avoid being sued, not to improve patient care. Moreover, the fear of being hounded by lawyers has caused some physicians to give up their practices, others to move to states with a more fair legal system, and others to limit their practices to patients without high-risk conditions that increase the peril of litigation. This trend has serious implications. Many patients are now at risk for not being able to see a physician, most poignantly, when they urgently need one.Major cities are without a Level I trauma program, and entire states have severely limited obstetric or surgical resources, or both. 1

Ability to obtain health care is affected by many factors, not the least of which is the patient's economic status. But a frightening prospect is the possibility of health care not being obtainable at any cost. As physicians, in particular surgeons, are forced out of practice or out of a geographic area, replacing them has been difficult. No one wants to practice in an area where physicians are in exodus. Doctors are acutely aware of the malpractice climate in a particular geographic area. It seems bad news travels fast. Consider also the length of time it takes to train a specialist. After 4 years of medical school, an additional 4 years are required to train an obstetrician/gynecologist, and 5 years to train a general surgeon. It probably takes another 5 to 10 years of clinical practice before that specialist attains the peak of his or her clinical prowess. Physicians, surgeons, and other specialists are precious resources that once lost are not easily replaced in the short term.

The potential of not having medical, surgical, emergency, or obstetrical services affects all of us. Imagine being told that no neurosurgeon is available to care for a family member who has an acute head injury after a car crash, or a mother in need of natal care being told that no obstetrician is available because none can afford the malpractice premium in that area or state. What was unthinkable a few short years ago is now a reality in some areas.

The medical litigation crisis in this country is multifactorial in origin. However, a major determinant of the crisis in malpractice litigation is the very expensive litigation system itself. Insurer's costs increased in the late 1990s, driven largely by increases in the cost of defending a lawsuit and the size and frequency of large claims. Although most cases of alleged malpractice do not go to trial, it is expensive to defend a claim—on average, almost $25 000 per case. 2

More to the point, the size of the median jury award has progressively increased. In 1998, the median jury award was $750 000, and in 1999 it was $800 000. Between 1994 and 1996, only 34% of verdicts that specified damages assessed awards of $1 million dollars or more. By 1999, 52% of all awards were in excess of $1 million dollars. 1 The entire system as currently practiced promotes a “winning the lottery” attitude. Although money as a remedy does not replace a hurt, from the patients’ perspective, a verdict in their favor represents a large economic windfall, perhaps more than a lifetime of gainful employment could provide. On the legal side, a plaintiff's lawyer can expect to garner 30% to 40% of the total amount awarded to an injured person by a jury verdict. A large “win” can result in a good payday for both the plaintiff and for the plaintiff's attorney.

Malpractice premiums have become unaffordable for some doctors, and some major carriers have been driven entirely out of the malpractice insurance market because of cost. The St. Paul Companies, which was one of the largest malpractice carriers in the United States covering many physicians, announced in 2001 that it would no longer offer coverage to any physician. 3

Reform of the litigation system is imperative and needs to be implemented now. Far too many patients are underserved. Far too many dislocations of medical personnel and practices have occurred. The number of states “in crisis” has steadily increased. Each state has different needs, and certainly one solution will not fit all. But most persons agree that for the medical liability system to function in a satisfactory manner, it must be predictable and rational. It cannot function as a lottery, as it exists today. To improve the litigation process, incentives for filing frivolous lawsuits must be eliminated, the “win the lottery” mentality of patients and patient lawyers must be diminished, and the medical liability system should be reasonably predictable.

The President of the United States has supported medical liability reform that seems reasonable and fair. He has suggested:

• Improve the ability of patients injured by negligence to obtain unlimited compensation for their “economic losses.”
  
  
• Ensure that recoveries for noneconomic damage do not exceed a reasonable amount.
  
  
• Reserve punitive damages for cases that truly merit them and avoid unreasonable awards.
  
  
• Provide for payment of a judgment over time.
  
  
• Ensure that ancient cases are not brought to trial years after the event.
  
  
• Inform the jury if a patient has another source of payment, ie, health insurance.
  
  
• Provide that defendants pay judgments in proportion to their fault, not based on “deep pockets.”
  

All of the above are rational principles upon which to base a dialogue for initiating nationwide medical liability reform. Continued delay will result in potentially irreparable harm to our patients and to the medical community.

Go to:
References:
1. US Department of Health and Human Services Confronting the new health care crisis: Improving health care quality and lowering costs by fixing our medical liability system. Available at: http://aspe.hhs.gov/daltcp/home.htm Accessed August 4, 2003
2. US Department of Health and Human Services. Update on the medical litigation crisis: Not the result of the “insurance cycle.” [Accessed August 7, 2003]. Available at: http://aspe.hhs.gov/daltcp/home.htm.
3. Modern Healthcare, January 7, 2002; Medical Malpractice, III Insurance Issues Update, March 2002 [Google Scholar]
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It’s a leading center for training, research and treatment. It’s a wonderful complex that we are blessed to have. I’d rather take my family there than anywhere else in the world all things considered.

 

Nah we have enough beds here. No need to export our people anywhere else for treatment.

Call Cuomo, that cry baby surely is looking for more help...just remember he will charge you NY state income tax if you volunteer to go there to help him...greedy bastard.

 

Every other country that is White and English-speaking, Western European, or Northeast Asian ethnicity. (not to mention a few small muslim countries that are filthy rich due to oil money)
That only accounts for 20% of the population of the Earth, of course.

Oops, the US only kind of half fits into that category these days, doesn't it?

I love presenting this every time someone like you shows a cherry-picked list of countries attempting to show how bad the US performs compared "the rest of the world" on indicators of wellbeing.

 

US is more diverse than any other country in almost every way. Geographic, economic, socially etc. it’s nuts when they pull out something like Denmark to try and compare the US to.

Not to mention that whole part where we still value our freedom to a point that we remain well armed as a people to defend it...that is a valid window into our structure as a society. We will not conform as willing as so many other nations, in fact I’m not sure there is any nation who is less likely to conform than us. I take comfort it that

 

Bulldust!

have you looked at Singapore’s health system? India? They are not perfect but they ARE improving. Until COVID a lot of SE Asian countries were making a good living from medical tourism with Americans being top of the list

 

I think you are doing nothing but bragging while TOTALLY ignoring the issues of healthcare in America.

Texas IS short on COVID beds and material. in many places. The failure of small hospitals in outlying areas is an issue throughout large regions of America, including Texas.

Are there hospitals with stupendous technical capability? ABSOLUELY. A friend had his life saved by going to the hospital across the street from Rice University to have his aorta replaced with a hunk of dacron hose running from his heart down into his legs, with myriad takeoffs for all his organs, etc. Unbelievable! The guy doing it graduated from Baghdad Medical School. How wonderful for Texas that they could accomplish buying this world famous doctor from another country.

But, the issues in the OP are VERY real. Much of our system is designed to be successful as a capitalist venture - not as a way of delivering healthcare to those in need.

When we suddenly need healthcare delivered to all those here, our system can flat out fail.

When we hear that there are still beds available, let's remember that hospitals have triage systems that alter criteria as beds get scarce. They start by denying beds to those needing joint replacements, etc. Those people can live with the pain. And, COVID patients are refused admittance until they are in serious trouble.

As for the financial pressure of COVID as noted in the OP ...

Today the cost of hospital treatment for a COVID survivor can soar over a million dollars.

It's no wonder that hospitals suffer when so many Americans don't have coverage that can handle COVID.

And, that is not going to improve by continuing with our coverage system that is designed with one objective in mind - maximizing profit.

 

Singapore is barely a state by our standards. We have larger cities than that entire country. Who cares if they’re catching up. Where have they been for a 100yrs leading the world in medical advances? People like you make a big deal about countries catching up. Yeah. I’d hope. Tiny countries that have nothing to defend and nothing anyone wants, have the autonomy to work efficiently. No one breaking down the doors to enter and exploit them for every drop of blood. Wonder how generous those countries are when you’re not a citizen, have no money and won’t leave. What kind of care do they offer? We have more illegals than Singapore has citizens.

And you can bet that if our country was as homogeneous as any “superior” medical country on a list, there wouldn’t be a list. We’d be our own list. Our murder rates would be quite comparable with any small EU nation once you remove certain demographics. Same with crime and every other negative statistic. Sadly the numbers don’t lie. Such is life.

 

They are empty as in no Covid patients which is opposite to what the media would have you believe.

 

Like this?

 

Our INS system is not preventing us from having a medical system that is as good as that of other first world countries.

Also, our wars have not been oriented to protecting America. So,I don't accept your argument there, either, if that's what you meant.

Also, remember that Medicare is nation wide and has LOWER overhead than our for-profit system - even though those it serves tend to have more (and more expensive) health care issues.

You can't claim that other countries are beating us simply because they aren't as populous. Our own single payer system is beating our for profit system, too!

 

What we are hearing is that spikes in COVID take a heavy toll on the hospitals in those places.

There ARE reports that more generally cover hospitals in the US. For example, there are studies concerning the reasons that hospitals in low population areas have been foundering over the last decade or more. And more recently that is a problem if there is a COVID outbreak in such an area - obviously.

 

And yet they have an excellent healthcare system

 

I guess the govt. funds were not enough and the next one will need to provide more.