Originally posted by treetalkExcessive regulation.
So, why is healthcare so high in the US?
Doctors are required by law to be vastly overqualified to do what they do. Imagine that, by law, you had to have a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering to be allowed to repair a car. Car repairs would be 6x as expensive as they are now because there would not be enough mechanics.
Quality of care also suffers because the press of people trying to force their way into the doctor's office means that "slow" medicine -- correct diagnostics, preventive medicine, and multiple follow-up visits -- are "too expensive". So generally only acute symptoms are treated.
Overregulation inevitably produces poor quality at high cost.
Originally posted by spruce112358Very true.
Excessive regulation.
Doctors are required by law to be vastly overqualified to do what they do. Imagine that, by law, you had to have a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering to be allowed to repair a car. Car repairs would be 6x as expensive as they are now because there would not be enough mechanics.
Quality of care also suffers because the press of p ...[text shortened]... cute symptoms are treated.
Overregulation inevitably produces poor quality at high cost.
Also doctors covering their own butts will order many more tests than are needed. MRI's, plain film xrays, excessive blood tests, etc... This all adds to the average cost per condition. OB's pay in excess of 100,000 per year in malpractice insurance... we all know who really ends up paying for that.
Originally posted by der schwarze RitterBut they have the same system in the UK, Australia, NZ (to a large extent, although not completely), are these "banana republics"? And, well, whilst none of these countries reach the peak of what the ultra rich can afford in the US, they don't reach the depths that the poor are forced to stoop to.
OK, OK -- maybe you're willing to trade modern medicine, science, sanitation and convenience for a single-payer form of health care administered by a syphilis-addled dictator of a small banana republic, but I'm not. From the story in question:
"Hospitals in Cuba are often shabby and badly-lit, and lack equipment and medicines."
"The export ...[text shortened]... r social benefits have come at a cost of political freedom in a one-party state."
Originally posted by spruce112358Yeah, I mean, why have a Doctor take care of your health, surely a guy with minimal medical training could just hand out meds instead. Of course, he'd probably misdiagnose you, and you'd wind up dead, but hey, it's a few more bucks in some rich guys pockets.
Excessive regulation.
Doctors are required by law to be vastly overqualified to do what they do. Imagine that, by law, you had to have a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering to be allowed to repair a car. Car repairs would be 6x as expensive as they are now because there would not be enough mechanics.
Quality of care also suffers because the press of p ...[text shortened]... cute symptoms are treated.
Overregulation inevitably produces poor quality at high cost.
Originally posted by spruce112358Insurance has the inherent asymmetric informational problems of adverse selection.
Excessive regulation.
Doctors are required by law to be vastly overqualified to do what they do. Imagine that, by law, you had to have a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering to be allowed to repair a car. Car repairs would be 6x as expensive as they are now because there would not be enough mechanics.
Quality of care also suffers because the press of p ...[text shortened]... cute symptoms are treated.
Overregulation inevitably produces poor quality at high cost.
To those unfamiliar with the term, adverse selection means that people who are likely to need insurance are more likely to be the ones wanting insurance and the insurance company has less information about the individual than the individual itself.
This means that the market, left to itself, will lead to much higher prices than would be socially optimal. Due to adverse selection, and the fact that the insurance company knows that it knows less about each individual than the individual itself, they'll simply price out of the market those that are less risky and charge high prices to those that can pay. Everybody loses, here. The insurance company gains less, those that can't pay aren't insured and those that pay have to pay more.
PS: Conversely, moral hazard may benefit a non-universal health system, but I think the problem of adverse selection illustrates why the insurance system can lead to high prices and market exclusion as seems to be the case in the US.
Originally posted by treetalkWe have the best of everything -- the newest, latest, greatest procedures and drugs. All of this costs money -- lots of money. Secondly, health care costs so much in the United States because through health insurance, people do not have to pay attention to costs. Someone else pays and you go to the doctor without regard to the price.
So, why is healthcare so high in the US?
Originally posted by sonhousewell, on some things i think you're right and some you're wrong.
So it's ok for the american government to diss those volunteers who badly need help? I don't hear anyone telling about how soldiers coming back from Iraq and suffering from any number of ailments from gunshot to mental problems, they are dissed just as bad as the volunteer workers. You people are friggin blind if you can't see the US health system as a corr ...[text shortened]... one because they were denied the health care they desparetly needed were just paid actors?
like, why SHOULDN'T they go to Cuba?
the question at hand (in my post) was, should we blindly follow some mythic ideal of Cuban health care, as presented by Michael Moore in Castro's show hospitals?
re your OP,
Originally posted by sonhouse
It was a brilliantly done documentary, driving home just what we have lost in America. We Americans have lost the America we thought we had 50 years ago. The death rate statistics put us just better then Guyana and we are supposed to have this advanced medical system here. ...[/i]' ...
check out nationmaster.com and CIA world factbook and you'll only see a couple of Western European countries like Iceland and Ireland doing better than the US in death rate states.
on the other hand, we probably should have a universal health system. after all, highway maintenance, defense, the legal system, etc. are socialized. but i don't see how we are going to get a good system. it'd be nice if we did.
Originally posted by treetalkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_economics#Health_care_markets
So, why is healthcare so high in the US?
"...
Although assumptions of textbook models of economic markets apply reasonably well to health care markets, there are important deviations. Insurance markets rely on risk pools, in which relatively healthy enrollees subsidize the care of the rest. Insurers must cope with "adverse selection" which occurs when they are unable to fully predict the medical expenses of enrollees; adverse selection can destroy the risk pool. Features of insurance markets, such as group purchases and preexisting condition exclusions are meant to cope with adverse selection.
Insured patients are naturally less concerned about health care costs than they would if they paid the full price of care. The resulting "moral hazard" drives up costs, as shown by the famous RAND Health Insurance Experiment. Insurers use several techniques to limit the costs of moral hazard, including imposing copayments on patients and limiting physician incentives to provide costly care. Insurers often compete by their choice of service offerings, cost sharing requirements, and limitations on physicians.
Consumers in health care markets often suffer from a lack of adequate information about what services they need to buy and which providers offer the best value proposition. Health economists have documented a problem with "supplier induced demand", whereby providers base treatment recommendations on economic, rather than medical criteria. Researchers have also documented substantial "practice variations", whereby the treatment a patient receives depends as much on which doctor they visit as it does on their condition. Both private insurers and government payers use a variety of controls on service availability to rein in inducement and practice variations.
The U.S. health care market has relied extensively on competition to control costs and improve quality. Critics question whether problems with adverse selection, moral hazard, information asymmetries, demand inducement, and practice variations can be addressed by private markets. Competition has fostered reductions in prices, but consolidation by providers and, to a lesser extent, insurers, has tempered this effect.
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Originally posted by zeeblebotI did.
check out nationmaster.com and CIA world factbook and you'll only see a couple of Western European countries like Iceland and Ireland doing better than the US in death rate states.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_lif_exp_at_bir_tot_pop-life-expectancy-birth-total-population
#1 Andorra: 83.52 years
#2 Macau: 82.27 years
#3 Japan: 82.02 years
#4 San Marino: 81.8 years
#5 Singapore: 81.8 years
#6 Hong Kong: 81.68 years
#7 Sweden: 80.63 years
#8 Switzerland: 80.62 years
#9 Australia: 80.62 years
#10 France: 80.59 years
#11 Guernsey: 80.53 years
#12 Iceland: 80.43 years
#13 Canada: 80.34 years
#14 Cayman Islands: 80.2 years
#15 Italy: 79.94 years
#16 Gibraltar: 79.93 years
#17 Monaco: 79.82 years
#18 Liechtenstein: 79.81 years
#19 Spain: 79.78 years
#20 Norway: 79.67 years
#21 Israel: 79.59 years
#22 Jersey: 79.51 years
#23 Faroe Islands: 79.49 years
#24 Greece: 79.38 years
#25 Austria: 79.21 years
#26 Virgin Islands: 79.2 years
#27 Malta: 79.15 years
#28 Netherlands: 79.11 years
#29 Luxembourg: 79.03 years
#30 Montserrat: 79 years
#31 New Zealand: 78.96 years
#32 Germany: 78.95 years
#33 Belgium: 78.92 years
#34 Saint Pierre and Miquelon: 78.76 years
#35 Guam: 78.76 years
#36 United Kingdom: 78.7 years
#37 Finland: 78.66 years
#38 Man, Isle of: 78.64 years
#39 Jordan: 78.55 years
#40 Puerto Rico: 78.54 years
#41 Bosnia and Herzegovina: 78.17 years
#42 Bermuda: 78.13 years
#43 Saint Helena: 78.09 years
#44 United States: 78 years
Edit - Ok, just realized you said death rates and this is life expectancy. Still, it's surprisingly low.
Originally posted by zeeblebotWhat I am not sure of in your statistics is the number of people in the US who even bother with seeking out treatment. Australia as a Commonwealth country has over the past 20 years adopted a two tier system where private and public hospitals operate side by side often on the same premises. In Australia even though at times the wait in Emergency rooms can be horrendous, there is no-one that would decline seeking treatment on the basis of affordibility.
Yet a recent report from the Commonwealth Fund indicates that wait times in the U.S. are clearly shorter than they are in Canada.
In all areas measured, the U.S. fared better than Canada. For example, 24 percent of Canadians waited four hours or longer to be seen in the emergency room versus 12 percent in the U.S.
Is it possible that in the US they have a quicker throughput in their system only because less people as a proportion of the total population bother to seek treatment for a given severity of illness ( because of the costs involved) when compared to countries with universal health care? The reason that the US health care system looks healthy is that the statistics only tell of the clearance rates of those presenting themselves to an Emergency room.
The statistic has to be good because the medical industry being as profitable as it is provides enough services for those who can afford it. Because the health sector is not burdened by the needs of the whole population it comes up smelling like roses when it fact it smells a bit like a polished turd.