Health Care Discussion

[ChicosBailBonds]

^ good post

People need to stop taking little Johnnie in every time he sneezes or calling for an ambulance in a non-emergency because they don't have transportation etc.

Wait until you add millions more to the rolls....this is only going to happen more and more while doctors go bye and bye faster and faster.  Not that a lot of people predicted this was going to happen, but we did it anyway.

[ChicosBailBonds]

My wife is a PT at a relatively affluent hospital in the Milwaukee area and sees this all the time with the government funded patients.  Gets a patient that is told therapy should be able to treat the issue but surgery might as well and the government backed patient ALWAYS chooses surgery over PT.  PT would be infinitely less expensive and the outcome just as good, but because the patient doesn't care about cost they go for the quick fix.

I've been going to PT for my shoulder for 5 months, about to opt for surgery.  Wish I had done the surgery from the get go.  I know it's different for everyone, but in my particular case it will cost much more as I'm going to have the surgery now on top of all the PT sessions that didn't fix the injury.  Healthcare is tricky, as I think we all know.  Not black and white answers.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Funny you should say that, Cuba and Britain (along with 37 other countries) both have higher life expectancies than us

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

You might want to retract the Cuba thingy....there has long been issues with the data and just how trustworthy it is from that nation

http://www.autentico.org/oa09889.php


Also a number of papers done on life expectancy and infant mortality rate data in this regard.  http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA547ComparativeHealth.html



Data is also different from one source to another.  Some suggest USA is higher than what Wiki (that sage source of truthiness) has to say.   http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/world-rankings-total-deaths

[Coleman]

Which in no way coorolates to stress levels or health eating habits only medical care?

It correlates to all of those things. But are you saying the medical system doesn't have an impact?

[Coleman]

You might want to retract the Cuba thingy....there has long been issues with the data and just how trustworthy it is from that nation

http://www.autentico.org/oa09889.php


Also a number of papers done on life expectancy and infant mortality rate data in this regard.  http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA547ComparativeHealth.html



Data is also different from one source to another.  Some suggest USA is higher than what Wiki (that sage source of truthiness) has to say.   http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/world-rankings-total-deaths

Fair enough. Cuba is a 3rd world country. I'd hope we'd be ahead of them. But Chicos even in the lists you supply we are in 30th place and behind a whole bunch of countries with single payer health systems. I don't think that hinders my case at all.

[mu03eng]

It correlates to all of those things. But are you saying the medical system doesn't have an impact?

We have the most advanced medicine in the world as is what about single payer system is going to change our life expectancy?  What is it about single payer that will vault us past those other systems?

I think the US health care is so advanced and some our choices as a society are so poor that we are lucky to be 37th in the world.  Yes our current system sucks but single payer isn't the answer that will make things worse.  Change the lifestyle

[WellsstreetWanderer]

Taught my children that something that is " free" holds no value
Spent 30 years in the medical field and because people have no knowledge of real costs they don't care what the real price is.  I have seen many people who have told me "price is of no consequence"  until they find  they must pay out of pocket. People should pay for lifestyle choices and minor treatments and not have to worry about catastrophic diseases bankrupting them.

[mu03eng]

I've been going to PT for my shoulder for 5 months, about to opt for surgery.  Wish I had done the surgery from the get go.  I know it's different for everyone, but in my particular case it will cost much more as I'm going to have the surgery now on top of all the PT sessions that didn't fix the injury.  Healthcare is tricky, as I think we all know.  Not black and white answers.

And for every you there is someone that would do fine with just PT.  Even if its 3 to 1 not helped to helped from a relative cost standpoint its a net gain.  Without applying cost to decisions you never reduce costs because there is no reason for the consumer to do so

[Hards Alumni]

They're both about 50%.

A lot of hilarious liberal talking points in this thread.

I guess it's worked so well for Cuba and Britain, so it must work well here...

You know, its comments like this that make you totally intolerable.  The rest of us grown ups can have a nice conversation but you seem to have to always throw in your two cents.

We get it.  You're a conservative.  You hate liberals. 

Now try contributing to conversations instead of just running your mouth.  It just makes you look like a child, and makes everyone lose respect for you.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Fair enough. Cuba is a 3rd world country. I'd hope we'd be ahead of them. But Chicos even in the lists you supply we are in 30th place and behind a whole bunch of countries with single payer health systems. I don't think that hinders my case at all.

And yet when push comes to shove, the elite from those countries come here to get treated.  Some of it is geography, we are still a very spread out country with large swaths of land where you are 50 miles from a nearest doctor...compared to some of those countries on that list where their nation is the size of South Carolina or Montana...that makes health care more convenient, etc.  How much litigation goes on in those other countries?  Etc, etc.  I don't find that example apples to apples every time it is brought up without normalizing for some of those variables.

Like I mentioned, my sister-in-law is Canadian (an attorney) and for some stuff she will say her system is great and for others, she absolutely deplores it.  Tradeoffs for everything.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Taught my children that something that is " free" holds no value
Spent 30 years in the medical field and because people have no knowledge of real costs they don't care what the real price is.  I have seen many people who have told me "price is of no consequence"  until they find  they must pay out of pocket. People should pay for lifestyle choices and minor treatments and not have to worry about catastrophic diseases bankrupting them.

So much truth to this, especially that first sentence.  It doesn't matter if it is medical, or tickets to the movies or whatever, if someone has no skin in the game (i.e. they don't pay for it), then it is less valued and cheapened.  If I receive 2 free movie tickets for tonight and don't go...no big deal, didn't cost me anything.  If I paid for two tickets tonight and don't go, I'm pissed...I just wasted money.  This is why when you have nearly 1/2 the population not paying for services, they don't have any clue what they cost and thus don't give a damn in how they are run, operated, etc....they didn't pay for it.  This is the crux of the problem.  Everyone should pay something.

[Jay Bee]

I've been going to PT for my shoulder for 5 months, about to opt for surgery.  Wish I had done the surgery from the get go. 

What's the issue & surgery?

[Chicago_inferiority_complexes]

Care to back up your 50% figure?  I got my numbers from this CNN article:  http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/27/politics/btn-health-care  .. 95 million covered by the US Government, private insurance is 196 million.  Do you disagree with their figures?

Not sure if you are aiming that "liberal" comment at me.  I am far from it.

I'm thinking about spending, which is split about in half. Sources are from the federal government.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903635604576472411389580364.html

Of course, Wikipedia claims that it's actually up to about two-thirds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States

[Chicago_inferiority_complexes]

I see Hards has taken a break from frothing at the mouth in the face of Republican legislators at the Capitol in Madison to contribute here.

Hope you're enjoying Act 10, loser.

[ATL MU Warrior]

So much truth to this, especially that first sentence.  It doesn't matter if it is medical, or tickets to the movies or whatever, if someone has no skin in the game (i.e. they don't pay for it), then it is less valued and cheapened.  If I receive 2 free movie tickets for tonight and don't go...no big deal, didn't cost me anything.  If I paid for two tickets tonight and don't go, I'm pissed...I just wasted money.  This is why when you have nearly 1/2 the population not paying for services, they don't have any clue what they cost and thus don't give a damn in how they are run, operated, etc....they didn't pay for it.  This is the crux of the problem.  Everyone should pay something.

The crux of the problem is that nobody, whether insured or uninsured, has any idea what the true costs of healthcare are, because nobody pays them directly.  It's not something that can be layed at the feet of only the poor/uninsured.

Read the article I linked earlier in the thread...it's very clear on the issues and proposes a common-sense solution for REAL reform.  And, because it's real reform, it will likely never happen, which is a shame because it would help immensely.

[Spotcheck Billy]

Funny you should say that, Cuba and Britain (along with 37 other countries) both have higher life expectancies than us

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

I would guess a factor in the US having a lower life expectancy is the number of people without healthcare bringing the averages down.

[mu_hilltopper]

I'm thinking about spending, which is split about in half. Sources are from the federal government.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903635604576472411389580364.html

Of course, Wikipedia claims that it's actually up to about two-thirds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States

First off, I am willing to admit I could be wrong.  I really am.   

The WSJ article is a prediction for 2020, so that's not quite the evidence we need.  The article does seem to suggest that currently it's a 54/46% split, with the Government paying the smaller portion.   This could be true, although I still find it surprising. (see below)

The wiki article .. I also find surprising, suggesting 60-65% is government spending.   Unfortunately, no source is cited in the article, so we really don't know where that number came from.

I gotta ask.  Isn't it really counter-intuitive to think a system that covers 90m people costs MORE than the system that covers 195m people?   I mean, is that what these stats suggest, that Medicare and Medicaid (etc) are SO broken they pay out nearly triple per person than the private market option?    Don't you find that hard to believe, in light of the admittedly scant statistics we've uncovered here?

[ATL MU Warrior]

Let me start by saying I don't know which numbers are correct.

The govt. programs cover primarily the elderly and poor...both of which require more care (and more expensive care) than the generally healthier middle/upper class.  Maybe that's the reason that the spending on govt. programs is nearly equal with private even though private covers about twice as many people.

[dwaderoy2004]

First off, I am willing to admit I could be wrong.  I really am.   

The WSJ article is a prediction for 2020, so that's not quite the evidence we need.  The article does seem to suggest that currently it's a 54/46% split, with the Government paying the smaller portion.   This could be true, although I still find it surprising. (see below)

The wiki article .. I also find surprising, suggesting 60-65% is government spending.   Unfortunately, no source is cited in the article, so we really don't know where that number came from.

I gotta ask.  Isn't it really counter-intuitive to think a system that covers 90m people costs MORE than the system that covers 195m people?   I mean, is that what these stats suggest, that Medicare and Medicaid (etc) are SO broken they pay out nearly triple per person than the private market option?    Don't you find that hard to believe, in light of the admittedly scant statistics we've uncovered here?

The 54/46 split doesn't seem too far out of the realm of possibility.  The people covered by medicare/caid are the poor and elderly, generally.  In other words, the two groups of people who would be likely to be less healthy than those who would have the means and/or are of an age to have private insurance.  If they are less healthy, they probably are requiring more interventional care, treatment, etc.  So despite there being twice as many people on private insurance than medicare/caid it's at least seems plausible to me that the actual spending gap is lower.

[Hards Alumni]

I see Hards has taken a break from frothing at the mouth in the face of Republican legislators at the Capitol in Madison to contribute here.

Hope you're enjoying Act 10, loser.

Thanks for proving my point.

[ChicosBailBonds]

And for every you there is someone that would do fine with just PT.  Even if its 3 to 1 not helped to helped from a relative cost standpoint its a net gain.  Without applying cost to decisions you never reduce costs because there is no reason for the consumer to do so

Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with you.  In fact, my knee issues were largely fixed with PT.  I wish my doctor had given me a bit more on the odds of success for the shoulder. If he would have said PT has a 50/50 chance of improving things but it will take 4 months to find out and cost X, but if doesn't work we have to do surgery anyway....well that's one thing.  Instead it was handled as, we're going to do physical therapy and see if we can get this taken care of.  If not, we'll got to phase 2...surgery.  I might have opted out of phase 1, all the time put into, etc and gone directly to phase 2. 

[ChicosBailBonds]

What's the issue & surgery?

Labrum is part of it.  I dislocated my shoulder and fractured clavicle way back in the day (Marquette days) playing volleyball.  I've had issues on and off, but nothing terrible.  I injured it again about 6 months ago and now some pain discomfort doing certain things, limited range of motion, etc.

[ChicosBailBonds]

The crux of the problem is that nobody, whether insured or uninsured, has any idea what the true costs of healthcare are, because nobody pays them directly.  It's not something that can be layed at the feet of only the poor/uninsured.

Read the article I linked earlier in the thread...it's very clear on the issues and proposes a common-sense solution for REAL reform.  And, because it's real reform, it will likely never happen, which is a shame because it would help immensely.

Yeah, I read it...there were some good ideas in there and some I find troublesome.  I know one common theme I hear (it was also in the article), is that too many tests are ordered by doctors that are unneeded.  What is almost NEVER addressed with these claims is what happens when a test isn't run, because a doctor is trying to not overly test these patients, and something happens....lawsuit city.  The doctor is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

That is absolutely my biggest issue with this article...6 long pages and not ONE single word on tort reform.  I don't know how you have a healthcare cost "fix" discussion and not look at all sides, including the absurdity in costs that are directly driven by the legal side of the house.

On the issue of price, which the article addresses, I do expect price differences to be honest.  It's not like we are all ordering a muffler.  An MRI by one clinic might be using an entirely different machine, tech expertise, etc than another clinic.  A different level of service, I do expect some fluctuation.  Now, how much is probably a good debate.

[Chicago_inferiority_complexes]

First off, I am willing to admit I could be wrong.  I really am.   

The WSJ article is a prediction for 2020, so that's not quite the evidence we need.  The article does seem to suggest that currently it's a 54/46% split, with the Government paying the smaller portion.   This could be true, although I still find it surprising. (see below)

The wiki article .. I also find surprising, suggesting 60-65% is government spending.   Unfortunately, no source is cited in the article, so we really don't know where that number came from.

I gotta ask.  Isn't it really counter-intuitive to think a system that covers 90m people costs MORE than the system that covers 195m people?   I mean, is that what these stats suggest, that Medicare and Medicaid (etc) are SO broken they pay out nearly triple per person than the private market option?    Don't you find that hard to believe, in light of the admittedly scant statistics we've uncovered here?

Here's the White House making the same claim of "about half":

http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cea/TheEconomicCaseforHealthCareReform

You raise a good question. Honestly, it does not surprise me. Consider the people involved. The people on Medicare are going to be using a LOT more healthcare resources than someone 25-55. Also, lower income people on Medicaid, etc., will tend to have a higher correlation with the use of health care. When I go into any waiting area (eyes, general practitioner, specialties), it often seems like the ratio of retirees to non retirees is 80/20.

I think the people with high deductible, HSA type plans just have a much greater disincentive to go to the doctor compared to someone on government care. If I have to pay the entire freight of a checkup (and I usually do), it makes me less willing to go compared to someone who has to pay little or nothing per visit.

[tower912]

What's the issue & surgery?

Injury from patting himself on the back.