Why are our heath care costs so very high, as compared to other countries?

Of course Obamacare is going to cause our insurance premiums to increase year after year! We need to scrap Obamacare and come up with a much better plan that will actually work!

Obamacare is too bureaucratic, it has too many "bells and whistles" it doesn't have effective cost controls and it is much too expensive to force on the American people.

This only people who really benefit from the provisions and costs of Obamacare are the insurance providers. Almost 40 million Americans will remain uninsured under Obamacare!

 

I encountered a man at the airport that needed an important surgery and was getting it done in Costa Rica for pennies on the dollar of the cost in America.
your second point on being aft has what to do with the high cost of medical care?

 

That is an easy question to answer.

When people eat too much and gain too much weight, they risk acquiring heart disease and diabetes. Heart disease leads to open heart surgery at a cost of about $70 K to $120 K a pop.

Diabetes often leads to organ disease and failure and these afflictions cause the repetitive health care costs for these people to increases substantially.

 

American medicine actually helps and cures folk to make their life better.

 

That's nice. I'm feeling the love

 

A MAN? ONE? There are over a million heart surgeries done in the US per year. One person is well below ANY statistical significance. What had he been told by US Doctors? Surgery won't help? Surgery is not needed? You don't know. Was he trying to save money or proceeding AMA? [Against Medical Advice]

I travel a lot. I always have travel insurance. It always includes coverage of the cost of an Air Ambulance to get me back to the USA for treatment.

 

You are very correct, Dan.

One feeble example does not a good case make!

 

In most cases the poor don't want and will not accept preventative care because of the co-pay costs involved.

 

You are mistaken, Mod.

Here is the actual truth without the harmful benefit of liberal spin.

The statistics often cited by progressives seem to show that we spend a larger fraction of our GDP on healthcare and don’t get better outcomes than other countries. It is true we spend more but it is also true our outcomes are much better than the outcomes of the socialist countries because we have advanced medical devices and diagostic instruments, the latest technology and life saving procedures and more highly-effective and successful life-saving emergency equipment. Spending more on health care is not always bad if more good lives are saved, and is not always true our costs are higher because we have private rather than highly-inefficient government-controlled markets.

As a good example, in many of these socialist markets, if people are anticipated to have a low success for surgical recovery, the government denies these people access to the latest (and costly) live-saving procedures to keep the successful outcome rates that they report to the public as high as possible. Do we really want a health care system like this one --- the very kind of health care system the liberal Democrats now have in store for all of us!

 

That proves my point outsource such care then if Obamacare exchanges simply said we promised care, we are sending you to the best tourist hospital in India for this cancer treatment because it will save money and you may take a loved one all at our expense and one week post care stay at a health resort why not do that? Or make it optional for people on insurance they have say go to a US hospital and this care is $80,000 or go to India its $20,000 with royal treatment with a loved one and you pay the out of pocket costs based on your choice. That would be fine to.

 

Why do you believe the federal government would do such a thing? Do you not realize this foolish policy would outsource more American jobs to India?

The government would lose more money in income taxes and paid-out unemployment benefits than it would save in medical costs by outsourcing health care to India. This policy is a good example of "the law of unintended consequences"!

 

It is far less than simple and obvious. Healthcare is a BUSINESS. It has always been a business, it will always be a business. The US Government has shown over and over and over, WITHOUT A SINGLE EXCEPTION, that they cannot run a business.

They cannot supply a simple count of the people in the USA. Just that, count the heads. They've never been able to do that. The 2010 Census cost THIRTEEN BILLION DOLLARS and its only a rough estimate.
They cannot supply a bonifide voter list.
Lately they have been unable to even do a budget. And when they DO a budget, it is a silly joke. A budget that says we will take in $2.5 trillion and we will spend $3.5 trillion is NOT a budget.
Venture capitalists take serious risks and make serious PROFITS. The Dept. of Energy in now the world's largest non private venture capital company. They take serious risks and incur massive losses without a whiff of profits. The DoE is a toilet for flushing tax dollars away.
The USPS, massive losses, billions! While a number of private firms make enormous profits in the same industry. Firms like UPS and FedEx make more profits than health insurance companies.
OUR government cannot and never has been able to run a business. Healthcare has been regulated by government for ALL of my 70 plus years. Government idiocy is why our healthcare costs are high. More government means ONLY that healthcare costs will be even higher at an accelerating rate, and care WILL SUFFER!

 

Obesity causes an average increase of $2,460.00 per overweight person per year. According to local media anyway.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/weightloss/2009-11-17-future-obesity-costs_N.htm

Obese people tend to die 3-12 years sooner than normal weight people.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/weightloss/2009-08-25-obesity-lifespan_N.htm

Depending on retirement, which is cheaper to combat?

Who stands to gain profit from obese people?

Who control our health care standards and practices?

Who loses with treating obesity?

 

Not true most of the uninsured not well off and just opting not to get any are poor and lower income people that work or are in a bad spot when the costs are to high. The law makes insurance for the bottom half of the subsidized coverage up to 200% of the poverty line very affordable for singles and families. And the co-pays subsidized at this level are 85% over 100% of the poverty line or 94% under 100% of the poverty line making a $100 office visit cost $1.80 which should encourage preventative care since this carries over to tests and other things like treatments of all sorts.

I would think many would opt in since the premium costs are based off of your income as a small percentage if your very poor a homeless man and your income is $2000 a year your share is just $40 a year and in the case of a major medical bill facing someone in severe poverty most providers would likely wave the co-pays - they are getting most of their money 98.2% paid.

 

Because we don't want to have to wait 9 1/2 weeks to see our regular doctor and 18+ weeks to see the specialist or therapeutic appointment. If you need surgery you'll wait some more. I guess Americans aren't big on Masochism like the socialist countries.

 

I nearly fell out of my seat, James! This is an excellent thread. It's amazing isn't it? So many of our problems in this country have nothing to do with political parties. A lot of our problems come down to dumb sh-t each and every one of us do all the time.

Obesity and lack of exercise don't explain the whole picture of increased costs. There are a lot of other problems in the system as well. But just taking care of your body so you reduce the amount of health care you need seems like a no brainer.

 

In the U.S. prices for medical services are gouged by the government. Government, via very heavy regulation limits number of health care participants as well as available hospitals. It is a simple supply/demand law, if number of health care services stays the same but population grow, we get deficit, the deficit causes price hike.

 

Actually the private sector has been a big champion of out patient services... Out patient care can be substantially cheaper than in patient care. The reduced number of hospitals is actually saving us money.

 

Sorry, I didn't read all the pages, and am sure the following ideas have already been presented.

A few obvious thing come to mind for me...

Lack of proper diet and exercise is certainly a factor in occurrence of illness and rising health care cost. Preventive health care should begin at the dinner table.

Extreme cost in developing and gaining approval of FDA, of new medications/treatments. Associated with this cost is marketing and necessary legal defense fund percentages ...thanks in no small part for the absolute need of tort reform.

Cost of providing care for the undetermined number of illegal immigrants, and uninsured. Perhaps not considered "PC" to discuss, but nonetheless a factor.

 

Balanced budget of 1997 had set hard limit on the number of health care providers, doctors in particular. As a result market competition has been diminished and health care cost has increased.

http://www.cga.ct.gov/ps98/rpt/olr/htm/98-r-1064.htm
Еstablishes limitations on payments for direct medical education (DME) based on the number of residents and other factors, and directs the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to study and report to Congress on variations among hospitals in the overhead and supervisory physician components of their direct GME costs;

 

I agree.

Allow me to call BS on this sentence.

Link.

 

He does have an opinion. He told you what he thinks needs to be done. He is not going to tie you down and give you an exam if you don't want it.

 

Respectfully, reading the thought in it's written entirety, one can see I alluded to your point.

Regards

 

Doctors eventually get tired of dealing with idiots. They are only human. What is their incentive to keep haranguing ADULTS about common sense stuff? When Obama tried to get them some money to discuss end of life decisions with their patients Sara Palin called it "death panels" and killed it. So no money for the doctors. Now they are supposed to do end of life counseling for free. Do you work for free? Did you pay $200K for your education and then worked for free? If not why should doctors?

 

The guy gets paid whether you die or not. Welcome to the "(*)(*)(*)(*) you, pay me" system of health care that everone wants to preserve.