Healthcare rant.

[Ravvenn]

Maybe there is a reason people get arthritis, strokes, cancer, or the other myriad of human diseases/conditions.

Don't tell anyone I told you this, but I cracked the code, sir.

Genetics (just one tiny example) --

And you know what else? I can't believe someone would go and try to treat and/or cure any type of medical problem. Who cares if it is fatal, or if it happens to haunt them daily with moderate levels of pain nearly crippling them?! I mean, seriously. You're with me, right, Penix?

Parents should be tested for any health problems before they decide to breed. In the event they are not in perfect health and decide to breed, their child will have their DNA tested and if it matches the DNA of his or her parents (chances are, it will) he or she shall be terminated!

YEAH!!!


Anyway, Mr.Gerbil, it is pretty messed up. I have read many cases from my home town that were seriously screwed up. I mentioned them in an older thread that Penix also derailed with his crack-whore babbles. There was a family who was bringing in a decent income (around 100k+ per year), the problem they had was to keep their son alive, the medication cost was $11,000 per week. They made too much to get medical assistance and too little to afford the medication. The best part was this 11k per week drug, Advate, is a drug made in Switzerland from the cell lines found in Chinese hamster ovaries.

The bestest part is the company refuses to say how much of a profit they are making off of it.

In short, I agree with you!

[findar]

there are always going to be cases where insurance would have been a better choice, but for the majority if insurance isnt something provided as a benefit its gunna be draining on you as an individual.

[Ashes Emberblade]

You are right, Angry Gerbil, when you say that part of the problem is medical providers having to foot the bill for patients that do not pay. But this is only a small part of an extremely large and complex problem.

There are many reasons as to why medical costs in this country are growing (with notable exceptions), and why fewer and fewer people are able to afford them. The main reasons, however, are a shortage of medical professionals (doctors, specialists, nurses, etc.) and government interference, via regulations and subsidies.

There has long been a shortage of medical professionals in the US, and the cause is pretty clear: The number of new doctors graduating per year is fewer than the number of doctors needed. Why? Primarily due to the AMA accreditation procedure, which is backed by government law. Under this procedure, a medical school can not teach unless it is accredited by the AMA. Yet, the AMA has a vested interest in reducing the number of doctors in America. That is, fewer doctors means less competition, less competition means doctors and hospitals can charge more.

For example, not long ago there was a man who runs / owns several medical schools in the Caribbean who wished to open one in the States. His schools have a very good reputation for putting out quality doctors. The AMA refused to accredit his school, despite his reputation and large amount of capital, thus destroying any hope of a very good, new medical school opening here. Why? The AMA stated that they had serious doubts as to the quality of the school. This is horse shit. The AMA limits accreditation in order to limit the number of new doctors, and thus the competition that their members face. Economics 101: when you bring supply below demand, prices increase.

The biggest problem facing the medical industry, however, is the government. The government has inserted itself into nearly every aspect of medicine. In every case, this involvement hurts not only the medical industry, but the consumer as well. This involvement falls into two categories; regulation and subsidization.

Government regulation of the medical industry exists at both the national and state levels. At the national level, you have entities such as the FDA. The FDA serves, or so it says, to safeguard the consumer from bad medication and procedures. Typically, this takes the form of a 10 year process by which a medication or procedure is evaluated. This procedure costs the pharmaceutical company which developed it roughly 1 billion dollars. 1 billion dollars. That's a lot of capital. Who do you think pays it? You and me.

I'm sure you're laughing at this. Why, without the FDA, how would we be kept safe from bad drugs? Bad drugs? Like Vioxx? Like Bextra? Like Accutane? Like Serevent? The list goes on, and on, and on. Let me ask you a question. You are critically ill. There is a procedure or drug which may save your life, but is of yet fairly untested. Would you take the chance and accept the treatment? What would you think of the government saying, "Oh no, we haven't tested that for another 8 years, you can't do it." Yet this is what we allow to happen. We allow the government not only to delay the entry of life saving medicines by 10 years, but we foot a 1 billion dollar bill every time we do it, in the form of higher drug / operation costs!

At the state level, regulation covers several areas. Some states, for example, stipulate that doctors MUST treat a patient, whether the patient can or can not pay, or whether the patient has or does not have insurance, or whether the patient is or is not covered by Medicaid. If you are a factory worker, does the government tell you where you can or can't work? As a stock broker, does the government tell you who you can or can not advise? Of course not, that would interfere with their rights as private citizens. But, suddenly, when doctors are involved, these rights are waived?

Other states regulate their insurance industries, stating what policies may and may not do / cover, how much they may or may not charge, etc. Again, this is interference with a private company. In both cases, the doctor and the insurance company, these regulations hurt the consumer. Many doctors quit due to the stress involved in dealing with the government. The costs of the insurance company are passed on to the consumer.

The government's worst influence, however, is via subsidization. Subsidization, of all the factors, raises costs the most. The government's primary medical subsidy is via Medicaid. I used to work as a clerk / accountant at a doctor's office, so I will use an example from my own experience. A patient comes in for an exam, but they do not have the money to pay for it. By state law, the doctor has to see them. They are, however, covered by Medicaid. The doctor's visit takes around an hour and involves an x-ray and the use of a few minor materials (plastic sheaths on a thermometer, cotton swabs, etc.). Not only is it one hour of the doctor's time, it is also an hour of the nurse's time. The doctor charges $100 for such a visit. Now, since the patient can not pay, but has Medicaid, we must bill Medicaid. Medicaid, however, decides it will only pay $70 for the procedure. We can not recover the other $30, because taking a patient to small claims isn't worth the effort. In order to file with Medicaid, a clerk, me, must spend roughly two hours doing paperwork, for this one visit. At $8 an hour, that's $16. Now, this assumes that it will only require one filing to get the $70 dollars, which is rarely the case. In addition, it required one hour of the nurse's time, so at $15 an hour, that's $15 dollars. Already, that $100 visit has turned into $39, received FAR in the future (when Medicaid decides to cut the check.) Now subtract the cost of doing business, such as cost of supplies, rent or lease, and money owed for equipment (x-ray machine, computers, etc.) and the doctor's profit, for this visit, becomes very slim. How does the doctor make it up? The cost is passed to you. So not only are you paying for Medicaid via tax dollars, you're paying for the doctor's cost to file with Medicaid. Medicaid, thus, introduces a bureacracy which WE pay for EVERY time we go to the doctor.

When you add a shortage of medical professionals to a government which substantially increases the cost of doing business for said medical professionals, you get the high costs we experience. Add to this the fact that we pay for those who do not, and you get outrageously high medical costs. So what is the solution?

Earlier I alluded to notable exceptions to the trend of increasing costs for medical service. There are two areas in which this is occurring; Lasik (vision correction) and cosmetic surgeries. Over the last 10 years, the costs associated with these procedures have plumeted. Why? These are the two areas that the government and insurance companies DO NOT COVER / REGULATE. Thus, the cost of business associated with them is much lower. Thus, more doctors flock to it, increasing competition, and driving down prices.

The answer, then, is to increase competition in the medical industry, while simultaneously decreasing the cost of business. To increase competition, do away with regulations concerning new medical schools, take away the government granted monopoly the AMA receives. To reduce costs, abolish the FDA, allowing individuals, with the advice of a doctor, to make their own medical decisions. Abolish Medicaid, decreasing the cost for taxpayers and consumers. Please, please, please do not construe this as "omgz crack wh0res is taking my tax dollars u fucking hippies." America is the MOST generous nation in the world. We contribute the most, per person, per annum, to charity. You can not tell me that, when given lower taxes (no more Medicaid) and lower medical prices (lower cost of doing business), that Americans will not take care of the poor and elderly via charity. You can not tell me that, because it is simply not true. I mean, hell, the best hospital in my city (New Orleans), is completely non-profit, charity funded.

Thank you for reading this. Please do not simply dismiss my post as irrelevant or stupid, as many on this board do, because it advocates less government involvement.

[Fogel]

I think one issue people are forgeting are the millions of americans who stuff their face with fast food and do 0 excersize their whole life, causing thousands upon thousands of health related issues such as heart disease etc that shouldn't be happening. Its putting a noticble strain on the healthcare system imo.

[AngryGerbil]

First of all: Thank you Ashes. You have provided me with exactly what I wanted. A well thought out intelligent and challenging argument to my "slam-dunk" thought process. Too many people in this world (religious people come to mind) begin to believe that their beliefs are 100% correct and infallable because they either do not want their beliefs to be challenged or they do not want to know what the challenge is.

Now, the meat. I should start by saying that it is late on Friday night and I am slightly sauced atm so, I still need time to process your post but for now, I'll give some knee-jerk reactions.

Your whole point about government regulation through the AMA and the FDA are interesting. I must admit, neither of those things factored into my original post, which I think is probably obvious. The AMA thing in particular is news to me so that'll have to wait.

The FDA thing, I'm inclined to agree with you to a point. When it takes the FDA 8 years to APPROVE Vioxx, then yes, something is obviously rotten in Denmark, no doubt about it. On the other hand, the complete abolition of the FDA doesn't sit too well with me either. The horror story in my head right now is two private enterprises (a doctor and a pharmecutical company for instance) in league with each other to push the "next best thing" onto patients with little regard for patient care and much regard for profit. High profile marketing thrown into the mix, and I'm already skeptical. So how do we fix that? Again, It's something I'll have to think about...

One paragraph of yours in particular struck me:

The government's worst influence, however, is via subsidization. Subsidization, of all the factors, raises costs the most. The government's primary medical subsidy is via Medicaid. I used to work as a clerk / accountant at a doctor's office, so I will use an example from my own experience. A patient comes in for an exam, but they do not have the money to pay for it. By state law, the doctor has to see them. They are, however, covered by Medicaid. The doctor's visit takes around an hour and involves an x-ray and the use of a few minor materials (plastic sheaths on a thermometer, cotton swabs, etc.). Not only is it one hour of the doctor's time, it is also an hour of the nurse's time. The doctor charges $100 for such a visit. Now, since the patient can not pay, but has Medicaid, we must bill Medicaid. Medicaid, however, decides it will only pay $70 for the procedure. We can not recover the other $30, because taking a patient to small claims isn't worth the effort. In order to file with Medicaid, a clerk, me, must spend roughly two hours doing paperwork, for this one visit. At $8 an hour, that's $16. Now, this assumes that it will only require one filing to get the $70 dollars, which is rarely the case. In addition, it required one hour of the nurse's time, so at $15 an hour, that's $15 dollars. Already, that $100 visit has turned into $39, received FAR in the future (when Medicaid decides to cut the check.) Now subtract the cost of doing business, such as cost of supplies, rent or lease, and money owed for equipment (x-ray machine, computers, etc.) and the doctor's profit, for this visit, becomes very slim. How does the doctor make it up? The cost is passed to you. So not only are you paying for Medicaid via tax dollars, you're paying for the doctor's cost to file with Medicaid. Medicaid, thus, introduces a bureacracy which WE pay for EVERY time we go to the doctor.

I too work as a clerk/accountant for a medical provider (private ambulance company), in case it wasn't obvious. And your gripes about how Medicaid work are spot on. Medicaid, in it's current form, helps noone BUT the poor. It has got to be THE most fucked up government program in existence. And I think even the most jaded liberal can agree that this society should not be all about fucking ourselves over to help the poor. And that's where we all run into the "hard part" of this thing. How do we help the poor, and also help ourselves?

I don't think we should eliminate Medicaid, we should bolster it. Empower it, give it some life. Roll Medicaid and Medicare into one entity, call it Medihelp (whatever, federally funded) and start insuring everyone for basic care. And this is where my true liberalness is going to shine....are we all that hard up for cash that we can't all give a little for a social medical program? Look, we all know that government wastes tons and tons of money, and we as a people should rightfully be pissed about it. But of all the things to "cut" from the budget, is medicine really going to be one of them? I mean, c'mon. Let's start cracking down on the TRUE bullshit (like perhaps, as you suggested, the FDA pig-whore) or the guy in the FTC who gets $60k a year to measure the average length of pickle stems ffs.

I can stand up and say "I can give". And I can, and I do. I give to the CCCF (even though I am an atheist) and the ACLU. And even after that, I know that I can give a bit more if I had to. And if Americans are going to "give a penny take a penny", what better cause to do so than into healthcare?

And, as I said in my original post, by giving into this propsed system, you will likely be saving yourself money in the long run by allowing providers to even out their balance billing amonst the populace (rich or poor) thereby saving Joe-6Pack from being raped and gouged by the providers from the inability of the poor (and the current Medicaid system) to adequately reimburse services rendered.

[Darus Grey]

are we all that hard up for cash that we can't all give a little for a social medical program?

Yes, because well I have no qualms about donating to a charity to do such for others, I(and many others I'd assume) hate the notion of paying for another government program targeted at me, that I will get no use of, nor do I want to use.

I'm quite content with things as they currently are.

Day this happens is day I just give up on the US and move to Canada with the rest of my family.

[Ashes Emberblade]

Regarding the FDA. Let's say that your scenario came to fruition. You get a huge pharmaceuticals company with a bunch of doctors in their pocket, and they're out to make a quick buck or 3 million off unsuspecting consumers. You don't think the media would have an absolute field day with that one? What about lawyers? I mean, have you watched TV lately? Every other commercial is, "Hurt by Vioxx? Call Attorneys Rob and Plunder ASAP!" It's all over the news. Any company or doctor that did that, would be out of business and in jail faster than Michael Moore can eat a doughnut.

As far as Medicaid/Medicare are concerned, more is not the answer. The problem with these entities is that they create a middle man, the government, which does not have a bottom line. When an insurance company (that isn't heavily subsidized, at least) has to foot a bill, you know for a fact that they're going review it and haggle for the best price they can get, because if Blue Cross Agent Smith lets Hospital X charge $600 for a $25 blood test, there's going to be hell to pay. But for the government, that oversight simply does not exist. It doesn't have to! There's no chance of bankruptcy. If they need more money, the government simply taxes it or prints it. Where do you think this huge budget deficit came from? A large part of it is government agencies going into the red and printing their own money.

You know who else has a bottom line? Private charities. Your average charity's sole purpose is to help people. They have limited funds to do so. Therefore, it is in their best interest to use that money as effectively as possible, to ensure that the people who donate know they're doing a good job, and thus continue to donate. If you, personally, had more money, would you donate more? I would. And I'd have more money if I wasn't paying Medicaid taxes and the increased medical costs that Medicaid, and government bureacracy in general, engender.

The question really boils down to this: Do you want a universal health care system that is inefficient, with waiting times for procedures and doctors quitting in droves? Or do you want a private health care system, that is highly efficient and innovative, encourages competition, and via private charity, is ALSO universal? We can't have it both ways, and the middle road, which we're in now, is untenable.

[Kilivek]

Originally posted by Fogel
I think one issue people are forgeting are the millions of americans who stuff their face with fast food and do 0 excersize their whole life, causing thousands upon thousands of health related issues such as heart disease etc that shouldn't be happening. Its putting a noticble strain on the healthcare system imo.

You are wrong, stupid, and not allowed to post anymore.

[Eomer]

How is he wrong? Lot's of experts are predicting that the generation born in the late 80's and on are probably going to be the first ever to have a lower life expectancy than their parents, primarily due to skyrocketing obesity. This isn't unique to the US, however. But the US is certainly leading the way. Canada, Europe, even China (due in large part to the one child policy and parents spoiling their kids) are all experiencing a huge surge in obesity rates in their population. And there's no doubt that fat people are more prone to a whole slew of diseases and medical issues.

[Ravvenn]

Originally posted by Fogel
I think one issue people are forgeting are the millions of americans who stuff their face with fast food and do 0 excersize their whole life, causing thousands upon thousands of health related issues such as heart disease etc that shouldn't be happening. Its putting a noticble strain on the healthcare system imo.

I think the only thing those people put strain on would be their knees.

[Renolin]

You're kidding, right?

[Grimble]

Originally posted by Eomer
How is he wrong? Lot's of experts are predicting that the generation born in the late 80's and on are probably going to be the first ever to have a lower life expectancy than their parents, primarily due to skyrocketing obesity.

Would you mind pointing to some sources? Its not that I doubt you, I know obesity is becoming a huge problem in this country, but any studies I've seen have placed life expectancy WELL above our parents. This is of course speculative, as medical experts are assuming we will have a cure, or at least better treatment, for cancer and heart disease within our lifetime. Not to mention HIV. We should also have safer transportation. These four improvements alone would have a HUGE boost on life expectancy that would outweigh the growing obesity problem.

[Fogel]

Its got nothing to do with life expectancy. Its all about bottlenecks. Its the same as why social security is fucked, why? Because when SS was first implemented, more people were paying in then they were paying out. Now, its the opposite. Example:

Pre 1980 Out of 10 people 1 would have health problems from genetics and 1 would have health problems due to obeisity.

Post 1980 1 would have health problems from genetics and 3 would have health problems from obeisity.

Who cares if a person lives to be over 67? Who's to say they still aren't obeise, have diabities/heart disease, and are just living longer cuz they're pumped up full of meds. What if this person lived a healthier lifestyle?

Are you honestly going to tell me that someone who eats right and excersizes every day doesn't cost us as much on average in regards to medical care as somoene who forced themselves into diabities, or forced themselves to have a heart attack, or forced themselves to have high blood pressure because they eat food thats nothing but fat/calories/sugar/sodium. Now are you gonna tell me there aren't WAY more cases of this now then there was back in the day when there wasn't a mcdonalds/burger king/dunkin donuts on every corner and people didn't watch 8 hours of TV a day.

[Eomer]

Here's the first link from Google searching for "life expectancy obesity generation": http://www.fitfaq.com/2005/02/obesit...t-us-life.html

It's by no means certain, it's damn near impossible to predict things of that nature. Other advances could reduce the death rates of heart disease and diabetes and balance everything out. Maybe people will get the message and get off their fat asses. But if things continue as they do, it's not gonna be pretty.

Here's another, from the UK: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/child...081215,00.html

[Fogel]

According to the 1980 numbers 3 times as many people are obeise now compared to 1980. So thats roughly 40 million people who are 3 times as more likely to develop heart disease and 10 times more likely to develop diabeties according to the above link.