Talk of The Villages Florida - Rentals, Entertainment & More
Talk of The Villages Florida - Rentals, Entertainment & More
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Curiouser and curiouser: monies spent on medical care
I found this on a trivia website—and just the facts and figures left me wondering. Maybe you too?
------------------------------------------------------ The United States has the unsavory distinction of spending the most money on health care per person in the world. How much? A staggering $9,237 per person! This is according to a study of 184 countries by the Global Burden of Disease Health Financing Collaborator Network. Higher spending does not necessarily mean better health overall, however. Compared to the U.K., which spends an average of $3,749 per person, the life expectancy in the U.S. is actually less — 79.1 years, while it’s 80.9 years in the U.K. In fact, the life expectancy of the U.S. ranks 12th. On the other end of the spectrum, Somalia spends the least amount of all nations at $33 per person. Source: NPR | Date Updated: July 23, 2019 |
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#2
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This is not news, it has been know for years that the US spends double (or more) and poorer results than most industrialized nations.
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#3
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The only way to reduce health care costs is to require patients to pay a percentage of the cost every time they receive health care. That way they will shop around for lower cost providers and require providers to compete with each other. Insurance is fine, but if the coverage is 100 percent of the cost, there is no incentive for anyone to reduce the cost.
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#4
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You must always be careful when citing statistics. Life expectancy probably has as much to do with lifestyle as healthcare. Many in the US have less than ideal lifestyles, especially when compared to other countries, and healthcare can't really fix that. However, when it comes to trauma medicine we are probably the best in the world.
When it comes to healthcare, there are three issues; low cost, universality, and quality. Pick two because you can't have all three. I'll credit Ben Shapiro for saying this but the concept applies to other items/services. Quote:
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#5
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__________________
Men plug the dikes of their most needed beliefs with whatever mud they can find. - Clifford Geertz |
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Last edited by retiredguy123; 07-31-2019 at 09:32 AM. |
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The alternative? My wife was on a medication that required weekly blood testing. It was a stat test, meaning as soon as the blood was drawn, a courier had to transport it from the collection site to the processing lab. There they would determine results, generate paperwork for the physician and for the patient (by special permission), and deal with the insurance companies. The regular charge for this test in those days was $28; however, the insurance companies (plural) had negotiated with the lab to accept $2 (as in TWO DOLLARS) for performing this test. I asked how the lab can stay in business doing what was required for $2, and why call it a $28 test, that is, who pays $28? Ready for the response? 'Only the uninsured pay $28. We have no choice but to accept the $2 from the insurance companies, or else we would get no business at all.' No further comment. Quote:
Whether health or lifestyle or other factors or a combination, I still shake my head at having learnt that on average people in the UK live nearly two years longer than those in the US—while spending only about one-third per person of what is spent in the US on health care. Perhaps we can learn something? Last edited by Quixote; 07-31-2019 at 05:21 PM. Reason: fix grammatical error |
#8
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Shopping is almost never possible in emergencies and emergencies are the most expensive healthcare - and they happen to everyone eventually. Tell the person allergic to bee stings to "shop around" for the pen/injector to save their lives, when a man bought the patent as is the "sole suppler" of a $20 pen and sells it for thousands. The ONLY way to reduce healthcare costs is to recognize that healthy citizens are a benefit to everyone (do you want to live next door to someone with ebola or measles or the black plague?) - it improves GPD by making businesses more profitable to have more productive healthy workers. The way to reduce healthcare costs is to regulate the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries and treat health care as a right and not a profit center where big Pharma can black mail parents trying to save their children lives. |
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