DIYbanter - View Single Post - CFLs vs LEDs vs incandescents: round 1,538

HeyBub[_3_]

wrote:

Our health care system works well, 86% of our ~350M population has
health insurance and of the remaining 14% a good number have it
available, but choose not to take it.

Or maybe can't afford it. They end up with poor healthcare
(the emergency room) and we all end up paying for their care which is
delivered at a much higher cost than normal care and since they don't
get preventative care, they are less healthy and therfor cost even
more while recieveing less care.

Or maybe they're illegal aliens (~15 million).
Or maybe they're incarcerated (~2.6 million).
Or maybe they're between jobs (~2.2 million).
Or maybe they're between 18 and 27 and choose to spend their money otherwise
(~3.3 million)
Or maybe they're eligible for Medicaid or S-CHIPS and will apply when they
get sick (?)
Or maybe they're self-insured (?)

That is the way compition has worked in this non-free,
non-competitive market.

...

You make some good points. I would argue for LESSER controls on
insurance companies - let the market decide.

As it is now, individual states mandate all manner of restrictions on
insurance companies....

I would agree that current regulations need major revisions.

I would like to take the profit motive out of the system as
much as possible.

Try to wrap your mind around this fact: It is the profit incentive that
drives innovation. Without the profit motive, we wouldn't have breast
implants and all manner of other wonderful advances.

For example no doctor should recieve any benefit from sending
a paticent for a test, or procedure. They should be isolated from the
profit of MRI's and perscriptions etc.

If the referral is to another company, that practice is already illegal.

As an example: I have a back problem. When it comes up I need
help now.

In the US I end up in the emergency room. There they start
with my insurance card, I see three or for people, all taking
information over the first 20 minutes or so that I am there. I
finally see the doctor and each time, the send me to get one of those
fancy X-ray test that cost a ton. Each time I am taking up a room in
the emergency area of the hospital. Each time they come back with the
same conclusion, and prescribe several perscriptions.

In the UK I get to the emergency room, talk to the lady behind
the desk and I am asked to wait. I was infromed that they knew what
the problem was, but they needed to find a doctor free to write the
prescription. Doctor came we talked while he examined me and within
15 minutes of arriving, I was on a stretcher in the hallway waiting
for the drugs to take effect. I was out of there in less time than it
took to finish the text in the US. Yea, I did not have a private
room, and I was not on an IV and I did not get more X-rays and I had
no bill to pay, nor did they even care that myUS insurance covered me
there.

Let's see, US more time more test and more cost to me and my
insurance company vs faster care, less X-Ray exposure and less than
thirty minutes total vs two to three hourse in the US.

That's you. I place a call to my doctor and drive to the pharmacy. There I
pick up a bottle of 60 Vicodin and hand over $5.00. I'm done.

I'm glad I'm not you.

Look up. Do you see a black cloud following you around? Sure sounds like it.

Why in the world would you want the public medical service
when you can get much more expensive care in the US. Of course I can
see where a lot of our commerical medical industry might want to keep
things as they are.

Because I CAN GET more expensive medical care in the U.S.

I read about a case recently involving an 82-year-old woman from the UK who
had suffered for several years with pain in her finger joints. Many visits
to her local GP all resulted in the same diagnosis and treatment: This
happens when you get old and take Tylenol.

She visited her granddaughter in rural New Hampshire and had an episode. In
fact, her left hand even swelled a bit. Her relatives took her to their
local doctor, who, within two hours had X-rays, blood work, and an MRI.
Diagnosis: GOUT!

She got some pills.

Mind you, all this was at a small hospital in rural New Hampshire. Oh, the
whole episode cost a few hundred dollars, but years of suffering went away.