I believe the victims here would appreciate some "socialism" - as in Medicare for all.

[mrstickball]

Soleron said:

mrstickball said:

haxxiy said:
...

The phycisians aren't the problem. Its the American system.

Our system is fraught with insane compliance costs because of government. Our government's interference with the market comprises more costs than the actual care itself. Its only going to get more expensive, thanks to the Democrats and Obama, because they've increased taxes on medical equipment.

Having a universal healthcare system may not fix the compliance costs. If the regulations still exist that doctors, nurses, and hospitals must deal with in order to be compensated, then it means that everyone simply foots the bill of the most expensive health care system in the world.

Fix the cost issues first by removing the massive amount of government compliances (as well as the cartel known as the AMA which licenses everyone). The system will be rather cheap. Then, at that point, discuss the argument of universal health care. But I do believe that at that time, everyone would be covered due to how cheap insurances are.

I believe that the worst systems in the world are those combinin public and private governance. Franchising, outsourcing, regional cable monopolies, UK's private finance initiatives, and so on. You get the inefficiency/lack of competition of public systems combined with the profit-seeking and lack of accountability of the markets.

If we must have a system like you describe, I want to see the government have no role in the choice of facility. Medicare/Medicaid covered people must be allowed to choose any hospital or provider and the government will pay the same rate for care as the market would, otherwie the size of the government's custom will continue to distort the market.

We are in agreement.

The reality is that due to various requirements of medicare/mediciad, costs actually increase. You have an odd, horribly inefficient mix of quasi-free market entities (for-profit corporations) and governments that pay for services not based on actual costs, but merely whatever its pegged to. The result is horrific cost containment.

A good example is as CT scan. Our local newspaper published a study on the cost of CT scans in our largest city (Columbus, OH). Do you want to guess what the price difference was among all CT scan providers? The median price was about $1,500. The cheapest? $200. Why was it so cheap? They rejected Medicare/medicaid and most insurances, and were, as far as I know, a cash-pay clinic. My wife went to one of these (similar) centers for our baby's ultrasound. For just $80 USD, we got a 20 minute 4D scan (thats 3D+ pictures and videos). Comparatively, when my wife was forced to get an ultrasound at a hospital, it was $1,500 for 20 minutes of ultrasound + a 1 hour stay in a bed.