| HappySqurriel said: Regardless of whether it is an insurance company or the government, having a third party decide how your money will be spent is a good way to ensure that you get unsatisfactory service at a very high cost ... Get the government and insurance companies out of providing health benefit programs, and introduce real health insurance, and watch the cost of health-care collapse. |
Its not just that. The real core problem is how the government and administration treat health care.
That is, with massive regulations and controls that put the government and reporting at the center of care, and not the patient. For example, if a hospital wants paid via Medicare/Medicaid, they have to fill out a ton of paperwork. A 15 minute checkup may require 30 minutes or an hours' worth of paperwork either by the doctor (making $50/hr) or the hospital staff (making between $10-$30/hr).
Add in all of the compliance costs of drugs through the FDA, and pills become prohibitively expensive, as billions are poured into R&D for drugs that may or may not get approved by the government for use in patients - much less the years of clinical trials required before its approved.
Finally, look at the cost of actually becoming a doctor in America. We have the highest standards in the developed world. It requires 12 years of schooling and residency to become a doctor vs. 6 years in the developing world (India, China, ect) and 8 or less in the developed world (Europe, and Japan which is 6 years). That leads to massive debt among doctors going into practice - a cost which is directly transferred onto the patient.
Finally, add on top a health care 'insurance' that essentially pays for every facet of care, regardless if its a visit or cancer, and you drive costs up even further. My car insurance doesn't pay for oil or tires, but my health insurance paid for visits and medicines as well as surgeries and other major issues.
Add all four facets together, and you have the unique problem of American health care. Its a broken system, and pushing Medicare or a universal payer system onto everyone will not fix the intrinsic problems with our system. But rather, the opposite will happen: Costs will not be contained. People will go without (rationing), and the tax rate will skyrocket, taking monies away from the producers and giving them to the consumers that want to eat a twinkie diet and have the skinny, healthy, wealthy guy pay for his knee surgery when his skeleton can't support his 400lb frame any longer.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
