Healthcare and hospitals should all be not-for-profit

a reply to: Edumakated

1%er's are not the reason our system is failing or succeeding.

And try to explain why medical tourism OUT of the US is growing by leaps and bounds.

originally posted by: Edumakated

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
a reply to: JoshuaCox
I agree with your disdain concerning the role that insurance companies play, but you also pretend (or, at the very least, imply) that "every other modern country on the planet" has a perfect healthcare system, implying that this is the 'simple fix' for our healthcare/insurance costs.

I am in the middle of figuring out an internal shoulder injury (have an MRI scheduled tomorrow), and the ortho surgeon whom I have been seeing worked in the British healthcare system for more than two years. I briefly asked him what the pros and cons of each system is, and it all boiled down to this (extremely simplified, of course): We have better and quicker access to specialists, but pay the financial cost for that access. Also, in the UK, apparently not everyone is a specialist--here in the U.S., if you need a hip replacement, for example, you tend to go to a surgeon who specializes in hip replacements. In the UK system, all surgeons are required to perform hip replacements, and the wait in the UK to (more often than not) get a hip replacement from possibly a hand specialist, for example, is longer than here in U.S. for us to see a hip specialist, to the tune of almost five times as long from start to finish.

So, yes, we may be getting ripped off, and there are absolutely changes that we can make in our system that would make it "affordable care," but having the federal government meddle in it and mandate this and mandate that is not going to ever lower costs for Americans--the government needs to take it's happy hand out of the healthcare cookie jar, not grab the cookie jar and run with it.

By the way (referencing your pizza with half of the toppings comment), sure, I can go get a crappy frozen Red Baron pizza a the grocery store, or I could go to a pizza parlor and actually get a well-made pizza with good ingredients. Sure, the end result is that they are both pizza, but there is definitely a difference between the two that validates a higher cost.

You keep saying, "That's very easy math," but it's not always only about the bottom line for everyone. Quality matters, time that it takes to access medical services matters, and to some of us, we'd rather have higher confidence in who we see (in a shorter amount of time) than wonder if the guy about to do my shoulder surgery specialized in feet, but got tasked with my surgery because the government said he had to because there was a waiting list for shoulder surgeries and they want to reduce the wait time.

Not withstanding there is a reason all the 1%ers, government officials, and the elite in those countries come to the US anytime they need have life threatening medical needs...

We have the best upper tier surgeons because it is America and the best place to live.. America is Rome..


Besides that we have better elective surgery people .. Plastic surgeons exc..


F
For everything else we have substandard healthcare to everyone else... For broken bones and other immediate injuries they are in and out..

Just imagine how much time and money would be saved if there was no need to do the hour plus long insurance paperwork.

a reply to: musicismagic

"Greed over Caring."
LOL

Two points; first greed and caring are not mutually exclusive. In fact many places that are exceptionally greedy are exceptionally caring, because it pays (see luxury brands like hilton hotels, apple, etc).

Second: Everyone is greedy.

a reply to: Dfairlite

My man...Milton back when people thought.

a reply to: JoshuaCox

Just imagine how much time and money would be saved if there was no need to do the hour plus long insurance paperwork.

You only have to do this once unless you change providers. It's NBD.

For everything else we have substandard healthcare to everyone else... For broken bones and other immediate injuries they are in and out..

Actually we don't. Canada has the worst ER wait times Followed by Sweden and Norway.

29% of Canadians had to wait four hours or longer before being seen by a practitioner during their most recent emergency department visit.

In fact, in terms of service, the US is one of the best.
We lead in not needing an appointments to see doctors. #4 on how easy it is to get medical care after hours/weekends/holidays.
Canada uses the emergency room for basic care the most (likely why their wait times are so terrible).
The USA wins in surgery turn around times (61% of people have their surgery in less than a month. In Canada that's only 34%).
Seeing a specialist US comes in third, behind Germany and Switzerland... Sweden Norway and Canada are the bottom three.

a reply to: luthier

I miss those days. The world made so much more sense.

I say. Screw U.S. and come live with us Canadians. We will treat you better. That is if you don't mind having Justin Trudeau as your prime minister. But avoid Ontario. Ontario sucks balls for taxes.

a reply to: luthier
That's an interestingly constructed system, for sure, and I actually can appreciate (on the surface, anyhow) the basic coverage for everyone, and then supplemental plans are an out-of-pocket cost.

However, the major concern with me is the inefficient way that the U.S. federal government administers its programs--we are basically the most inefficient and overbearing administrators, and every. single. program. that is run by our government eventually becomes corrupt, bigger than planned, more burdensome and regulatory than it needs to be, and generally unaffordable and unlikable in many ways.

In a small country like Switzerland, this is a manageable way to run healthcare, and it works. But you're looking at a country with about 8.3-Million people in it--we have more than that just in the Greater Los Angeles Area in California. We have nearly 39 times as many people (officially) than Switzerland, so to increase the governance of such a program to that many people would make the program ridiculous.

This is why I advocate that our federal government get out of the business of health insurance and healthcare oversight. IF government intervention is a necessity (which I argue that, for some people, it is), it should be completely left up to the states. It may not same much in taxes, but the taxes used for federal implementation could be shifted to the state tax system.

If there is no state income-tax system, that's their issue to figure out.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

How can you think a for profit system doesn't need oversight?

The goal is not treatment and cure, it's profit.

Literally 50 percent of drug trials are being found to be false because of conflicts of interest and the need to regain research money even in drug failures.

This goes all the way to diagnosis.

If anything the Swiss approach would help with having to regulate all the greedy people faking drug trials and jacking up prices because they hold a patent.


The Swiss system is fairly simple compared to the us.

a reply to: luthier
Well, considering about 20% (unless it's dramatically shot up in the last decade) of all U.S. hospitals are for-profit, I think that the for-profit argument is relatively inconsequential.

But I didn't say there shouldn't be some regulation--I understand that minimal regulation is a necessity for many reasons--but I don't think that they (the fed. govt.) should have nearly as much power as they do.

As for drug trials, I fully believe that, but the FDA being an oversight agency has a lot to do with the need to fake things, not to mention the ability to fake things because there's so much red tape involved in many aspects of the pharmaceutical industry. I think that here's a happy medium in between where we're at now versus a completely unregulated system.

I do take issue with everyone who cites patents as being a tactic of the greedy--there is so much more involved as to why patents exist--but I think you and I probably agree more than we disagree, we may just differ on the influence that different causes have on the effect of high costs.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

I do agree I am.more just generally pissed this is going nowhere in Congress.

There is a huge difference between non profit health insurance, non profit pharmaceuticals though.

Hospitals may be non profit but their masters are for profit. They have to follow insurance guidelines in for profit insurance models and for profit drug models.

The whole we need profit for research is not a real argument. A research pool doesn't have to be for profit. It's the making sure shareholders are happy part that is the issue.

a reply to: dfnj2015

"House Republicans want to replace the protections Obamacare provides for people with pre-existing conditions with federally funded high-risk pools."

Only it isn't that simple anymore.

I work at a non-profit hospital. Doesn't mean you get free treatment. I pay the same no matter where I go. Just means that the hospital doesn't get as much money in return.


Oh, and great way to paint a group with a broad brush.

a reply to: luthier
Agreed--a non-profit can generate just as much necessary income for R&D for other drugs as a for-profit company can.

But then how will they get their $20-Million Christmas bonuses?

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Truthfully the reason I am obsessing on the Swiss model is I think it's the only way co.servant Ives can compromise with liberals without making a single payer. I think the current plans will fail and then bring in the single payer. Which would be terrible, the government can't get anything right so...

a reply to: luthier
You know, you're probably right, because there's no way, now that the government has usurped control, that we can ever go back to it being a fully private industry anymore (non-gov't controlled).

BTW, I figured you'd be interested to know that my MRI for my shoulder showed that I have a full-thickness tear in my supraspinatus tendon.

Effin' super...

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Yikes, but not fully ruptured? Man will they cut and reattach? Or is it possible to rehab? I hope it hasn't been to long that it's scarred over.

So sorry man. I gained about 20lbs when I became inactive. Going from competing in bjj and judo year round and being a guitar manufacturer (glorified factory worker) to watching my twins since I couldn't move my arm destroyed my metabolism. Nothing 3 months of burpees didn't fix but still it was my first time being out of shape.

I am going to say again broom stretches and rotator cuff training after your rehabbed. It has helped me to the point where I don't even panic in shoulder locks anymore. Even just having carpenter muscles made me panic before the injury. So tight in the shoulders and over built muscles for rotating in ward.

originally posted by: luthier
So sorry man. I gained about 20lbs when I became inactive.

Yeah, I'm right there--I used to be hitting the gym about 4 times a week, plus running, plus my martial arts.

Now I'm barely doing any of it, and certainly not at much intensity like I used to...it's frustrating, and now I have a 7-day cruise coming up. I'll have to buy an extra seat in the plane just to fit, probably.

[quot]I am going to say again broom stretches and rotator cuff training after your rehabbed. It has helped me to the point where I don't even panic in shoulder locks anymore. Even just having carpenter muscles made me panic before the injury. So tight in the shoulders and over built muscles for rotating in ward.
Yes, my shoulders have ALWAYS been tight--my dad had me working out tris and chest all of the time since I was about 13--placed first in two bench press championships when I was in high school for the whole district, a member of the 300-lb club (at 160lbs at the time...not too bad)...all of that stuff.

I'm now reaping the "rewards" of about 15 years of heavy lifting (off and on). I've backed off of the real heavy weights and generally prefer lighter, faster reps to work the fast-twitch muscles, too, but haven't done much at all in the past few months. It sucks.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Man I hope it goes well for you, the good thing is you know what it takes to make changes in your body which is where rehab fails for many people who haven't done intense athletic training. I hope you get a good Dr the ortho scoping is amazing for shoulder surgery recovery.

So you were a little hulk! I started wrestling and judo in middle schooland kykushin in HS but really wasn't injured severely until I started training with mma morons. Not that all mma guys are morons but a few guys would get upset when I used foot work to get in and out and tag them coming in to hard and stifle aggressive wrestling on the ground. I had a huge muscle guy pick me up in the guard and slam me feet over head crushed my disc and it ended up fusing one of the vertabrae in my neck. I was a carpenter at the time with no insurance. Thank god I am in the seniors division in bjj and judo now where everyone has had some kind of injury and don't go bizerker.

Have fun on the cruise just use the stairs as much as possible. Lol

a reply to: luthier

I wasn't really a little hulk, just a little strong SOB that didn't have a good outlet for my strength--at 17yrs old, I weight about 130lbs and was benching 275. I'm only 5'5" tall, so that's not as rail-skinny for me as it seems.

I tried to get into wrestling at one point, but when I started conditioning for it, I just happened to contract some lip fungus (not really, just a bacterial infection) and I couldn't participate because it was apparently contagious. I never pursued it after that, but I wish I had, because I was small, light, and strong--I think that I would have been really good at it.

Regardless, I appreciate the well wishes. If I remember after my follow-up, I'll let you know the course of action--you're too invested into it now not to have some closure