Know why we spend more than anyone else? Profit to the death healthcare. Certainly you agree that profit to the death healthcare is why our dollars to results is so miserable, correct?
🚨🚨🚨IRAN WAR IS BACK ON!!!🚨🚨🚨
- Thread starter BlIIlken2
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Dude, you're a joke. Get lost. You sit here and lie, then go after a poster who calls you out on your lies. You're simply another gutless Socialist.
So you're OK with NYC spending $44k per student on public education compared to an OECD average of $14 per student while getting worse results? Keep spending because there are a lot of factors?
No I don't agree. The nations largest private insurer is BC/BS and most of their operations are non profit. The biggest publicly traded insurance company is United Healthcare. Their net income was roughly 3% last year. In other words it they reduced premiums so they would have had no profit the policy holder could have saved a whopping 3%.
There are reasons why healthcare costs less in other countries. It's not as simple as saying it's greedy insurance company profits. I'm old enough to remember when we had government subsidized non profit co-ops in each state. They only lasted for a couple of years because they couldn't compete.
I think it would be great if our elected officials would put together a task force and come up with recommendations to help lower the cost of healthcare. Neither side will do that for a variety of reasons. Democrats want things like enhanced subsidies but that does absolutely nothing to lower the cost. It's just a way of having one person pay for somebody else.
Looks like hotshoe noped out. Pretty telling.
Reality doesn't square with your misguided belief that unregulated healthcare markets make healthcare cheaper. Quite the opposite. You know out healthcare system is a free for all when for profit insurers are the guardians between super expensive healthcare and bankruptcy level expensive heathcare. And they're still making absolutely record amounts in profits.
What makes health care more expensive for consumers?
Here’s just a sampling:
- Hospital consolidation (i.e. a hospital or health system purchases another hospital), which nearly always leads to higher prices at the acquired hospital
- Hospitals acquiring provider groups and then requiring doctors who work for those groups to refer patients only to their hospital for the care they need4
- Hospitals charging higher rates for care at the outpatient facilities they own, meaning patients pay more money for the exact same care they could have received at an independent doctor’s office5
- Pharmaceutical companies setting shockingly high prices for their drugs and increasing the price for hundreds of drugs every single year, just because they can
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OK, why can't we have good healthcare at a reasonable price like the rest of the world?
You're hilarious. You blame the profit insurance companies make and then you support your argument by providing the position of the largest publicly traded insurance company.
- I never said that I wanted unregulated healthcare. You just made that up. Regardless our healthcare system is hardly unregulated.
- 60% of hospitals are non profit.
RN $90k vs $50k
Doctor $300k vs $150k
Surgeon $450k vs $250k
Are you proposing a government regulation that immediately reduces provider pay by 40%-50%?
The one area where I might agree is with drugs. My solution would be to allow U.S. citizens to purchase drugs (and allow insurance to cover them) form approved pharmacies in Canada & Europe. Unfortunately the drug companies make big donations to our elected representatives to protect their interest.
Start with provider pay being up to 50% higher in the USA.
I don't dis other countries. They have advantages and disadvantages. My argument is against the overly simplified notion that costs would drop by 40%+ if we would simply allow the government to run it. That's simple and inaccurate thinking.
Do you think Canada is great?
Canada’s Ailing National Healthcare Is Not a Model for America - FEE
How about the UK?
NHS financial crisis deepens as trusts report £780 million deficit | The Independent
So we are both in agreement that we need way more pricing regulations to keep consumers from being ripped off. Because this free for all healthcare system has got to go.
This hodge podge system is nonsense, doesn't lead to more doctor visits, and doesn't lead to better results. Profit to death has got to end.
We pay way more with similar results. You're proving the point that the for profit system doesn't work.
You dodge my question while ignoring the two links I provided.
The UK is facing a serious nursing shortage, particularly within the National Health Service (NHS). As of 2024, there are approximately 47,000 nursing vacancies in NHS England. Many nurses are leaving the profession due to poor working conditions, low morale, and inadequate pay, leading to high turnover rates
We're facing shortages, too. They get similar results but pay a fraction of what we do. Why is that okay?
Provided pay isn’t the issue in American healthcare. It’s the massive number of rent seekers that the system is designed to accommodate. Every argument against public healthcare is some riff on about bureaucracy when the reality of what we currently have is a privatized system where:
1) prices aren’t public
2) prices depend on who’s paying
3) providers and hospitals bill separately and negotiate separately with insurers
4) hospital and insurance company executives and admin receive a greater portion of the revenue than the actual providers do.
5) there are 10 administrators for every 1 doctor
Their shortages are much greater than in the USA.
What are similar results? Our results aren't great if you go by life expectancy but I think a lot of that has to do with obesity. The obesity rate in the USA is 42.9% vs 28.7% in the UK and 27.3% in Canada.
You're still dodging the issue. You insist that if the government run it cost will fall dramatically because we will eliminate insurance company and provider profits. I told you that most insurance companies (BC/BS) are non profit or low profit (UHC) and 62% of hospitals are non profit. I pointed out that the USA pays providers SUBSTANTIALLY more than other countries. It's also more difficult to get timely care for some serious conditions in those countries. I think the problem is quite complex. You take the simple approach that it will all be great if we just let the government run it. I think that's an uninformed position.
A March 2024 Ipsos survey found that 42% of Canadians would go to the U.S. and personally pay for routine health care if needed. This reflects growing dissatisfaction with wait times in emergency rooms, specialist appointments, and screening procedures.
The US has shortages as well and we spend more to have them. Travel nursing is huge in the US right now because small/rural hospitals can’t afford to attract employees willing to commit to permanent employment and that means that the labor cost for nurses in long term attractive markets gets pushed up as well because standard w2 nursing positions have to pay the retention tax to keep staff from jumping for 1099 contracts in BFE.
As far as the NHS goes, this is the same situation in the UK as we have with the postal service here. Conservatives have spent 4 decades cutting or flatting funding (which is a funding cut relative to inflation) and then screaming that the system that they refuse to invest in doesn’t work. My neighbor who doesn’t water his grass and is constantly bitching about how he can’t get it to grow thinks they have a good point. Arsonist as fire inspector type ****.
BCBS is not for profit in the sense that they are not a corporate entity. They “reinvest” their profits in bloated administrative salaries.
In South Carolina, btw, the BCBS affiliate is for profit and is no better than UHC or Cigna. Ive had all three. They’re all trash.
It's ridiculous for you to think the USA can pay providers twice as much and have comparable costs.
I agree with many of your bullet points but I don't understand why you seem to think we lack price transparency because of capitalism. That makes zero sense to me. I can check prices on just about everything I purchase in the private market. This isn't a capitalism problem. In fact a capitalist system would help reduce wasted overhead or else one provider would lose business to another.
I did a quick search about the ration of administrators to doctors:
In the United States, the administrator-to-doctor ratio is significantly higher than in the UK. Recent data show that in many U.S. hospitals and healthcare systems, there are about 2–3 administrators for every doctor advancestudy.org. This reflects a long-term trend of administrative expansion driven by Medicare/Medicaid, managed care, electronic health records, complex billing, and regulatory compliance.
2-3 isn't 10 but even that number is arguably too high. You'll notice that it talks about things the government currently controls including regulatory compliance.
I'm all for the having government create a bipartisan group to study cost drivers and come up with recommendations to lower cost. I just don't believe having the government run it is a panacea. Higher subsidies that transfer cost to taxpayers or add to the debt isn't cost control. That's just more welfare and dependency.
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We have a severe doctor shortage in the US and Trump is making it worse.
Your literal argument for our inefficient health are system is that other countries have shortages. But then you ignore our own shortages which Trump has made worse. Are you ever going to get honest in this thread or just keep making excuses?
Your solution to lowering healthcare cost seems to be to have the government spend more. How is that cost reduction?
Every other developed country uses a government based system and gets the same results for less money. Please explain why you favor the more inefficient system?
Did you read what you posted?
The United States artificially limits the supply of clinicians through licensing rules, residency restrictions, and accreditation hurdles that restrict how many doctors we train and allow to practice. As a result, the system heavily depends on foreign-trained physicians, especially in underserved areas. Limiting their entry only worsens a shortage caused by domestic policies.
The USA has a disproportionate number of the best medical schools in the world. Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, UCSF, Yale, and Penn are all ranked in the top 10. And these colleges are well endowed. Just about every state school in the country has a big medical program (NYU, Cal, Michigan, Florida, Ohio State, PSU, UF, UCF, MUSC, etc. Why can't the USA provide enough doctors? Do you realize the number of doctors in the USA has risen by 79% in the past 30 years while population has only grown 26%?
You act like healthcare was abundant and inexpensive in the USA until Trump took office and screwed it up. That's incredibly narrow minded thinking.
The United States artificially limits the supply of clinicians through licensing rules, residency restrictions, and accreditation hurdles that restrict how many doctors we train and allow to practice. As a result, the system heavily depends on foreign-trained physicians, especially in underserved areas. Limiting their entry only worsens a shortage caused by domestic policies.
The USA has a disproportionate number of the best medical schools in the world. Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, UCSF, Yale, and Penn are all ranked in the top 10. And these colleges are well endowed. Just about every state school in the country has a big medical program (NYU, Cal, Michigan, Florida, Ohio State, PSU, UF, UCF, MUSC, etc. Why can't the USA provide enough doctors? Do you realize the number of doctors in the USA has risen by 79% in the past 30 years while population has only grown 26%?
You act like healthcare was abundant and inexpensive in the USA until Trump took office and screwed it up. That's incredibly narrow minded thinking.
This actually looks like a you issue. No one thinks that or is acting that way. You are probably just suffering some need to defend Trump when the situation doesn't call for it.
That's a dishonest response. I've clearly said that some things about other countries healthcare system are good but some are also bad. It's not so simple as to say things would be great if we simply let the government run more of our system. FWIW half the country is already on government healthcare and somehow it's still expensive and running out of money.
I prefer to look at data and apply some common sense. You take the easy route by saying our healthcare is expensive because of profits and Trump.
Do you or anyone know how much we've spent on this? They've reported nothing right?
So did the deal get signed yet? You know the one everyone was talking about Thursday and Friday that caused stock market to stop crashing and oil prices to stop rising. The one we were going to sign in Europe? Asking for a friend.
The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) is a 501(c)(4) public welfare organization, which is a type of nonprofit under U.S. tax law. There are more than 30 independent companies that operate under the BC/BS brand and the majority but not all are non profit.
I am not arguing for bloated administrative salaries. I support investigation into why that exists.
How am I defending Trump? Democrats have been in charge of the executive branch for 12 of the past 17 years and people Like Huey blame Trump. I say that's ridiculous and you blame me for defending Trump. WTF?
who is responsible for the IRAN war doofus? Thats the subject of the thread.
Or, hear me out, having the entire financial structure of the industry built around the sustainment of a completely distinct group of middlemen and rent seekers is the problem.
What we currently have is not a socialism problem. It’s certainly closer by any real definition to a capitalism problem.
Your solution is to have unlicensed untrained doctors? That's your solution to doctor shortages made worse by Trump limiting doctors from other countries?