The solution is free and affordable healthcare. Take out the corporate greed of the healthcare business in America and give back to taxpayers. Cap the excessive amounts they swindle out of patients and health insurance companies. They will take, take, take, as long as they can. They don't care how many Americans can't afford healthcare or the outrageous health insurance costs many can't afford.
I agree. The question is, how do you do it? I like a small government, but in instances such as these, you need government to step in and start busting these companies up as anti-trusts, to start.
You are looking at this most likely from a MD perspective. Doctors forget nurses are the eyes and ears on the floor. If you think 1:1 patient to nurse ratio is some kind of sweet gig…oh boy. Literally every nurse is overburdened and burnt out these days. No ratio is helping with that. And I don’t know what hospital is just full of helpful aids or techs. There’s usually 1 per floor that can barely be asked to take vitals in the AM. what needs to happen is we need to stop worshipping MDs and lower their pay. But go ahead and complain about travel nurses.
I think, as is the case in most instances, the truth is somewhere in between. I think you're right about the aides. I think @LosPollosHermanos is right in his ideal descriptions of hospitals. I don't think we need to lower physician pay. I think we need to up nursing pay. And I think hospitals are so different it's hard to slot job descriptions, staffing numbers, nurse to patient ratios, etc. as a black and white picture.
We already have free and affordable healthcare for poor people. What you're proposing is 100% socialized medicine so there is no for-profit healthcare, which will never happen in our country.
It should happen. It shouldn't just be accessible for "poor people". There are plenty of middle class citizens who don't qualify for free healthcare, yet can't afford the health coverage, or end up barely making ends meet to pay for coverage. It works in other countries. Yes, I believe healthcare should not be a business for profit. I never understand why prisoners get more benefits than taxpayers when it comes to free healthcare and education. Something's wrong with that.
In an ideal world, it would happen. You forgot the other group of people that there are too. The group that need something done, but it's not life and death, and they don't want the bill, so they ignore it. As a small and minor example, I have a torn meniscus and possibly other issues in one of my knees. It keeps me from doing everything I want to at the gym, but isn't typically a huge pain. I've gotten through that stage. I had an MRI ordered, but chose not to have it done because I know what it'll show, I know what the doctor will recommend, and I know what the bill will end up looking like. All that being said, I'm not poor by any means. I work in healthcare. I work for the system that all the imaging and surgery would be done. I am insured by the insurance company that the hospital owns. I just choose not to take on what would amount to probably around $1200-1300 in medical bills. Instead, I'll continue to slowly get out of shape, which could lead to more significant and more expensive health problems. This story plays out on a grander, and more significant, scale every day x 10,000+. Once again. The system is broken.
I don't disagree with you on universal healthcare, it's just not going to happen. Part of the greatness and power of the USA is driven by the capitalistic society we live in. You said a mouthful with the Prison Medical. But aren't these people the very definition of poor? They get paid pennies an hour if they can get a job in the prison. Other than the meager income they can make legally, they're wards of the state. I wouldn't say they get more benefits than free people. I worked in Prison Healthcare for three years, and the standard of medicine there is pretty low...and they still have to copay, at least in Texas.
I am not in the healthcare field. I have to deal with mostly doctors as I use them as experts in my cases, and I have both sued and represented many hospitals and medical care facilities. So while I am not entirely blind, I am still not working for the health industry. I know a number of nurses and even more doctors and as a lawyer and with my personality I appear to play the part of listener. I don't doubt the system is fractured or broken, and I have had a lot of people in the industry tell me as much. Further, as a lawyer, through discovery I have seen what ever single employee and independent contractor makes when working for hospitals and medical practices. There is certainly a lot of money and resources going to the executives, human resources, advertising and other related groups. The reality is that most of the people affiliated with the medical industry, from the records I have seen are doing better financially than any other sector I have seen other than possibly the energy sector and few specialized science sectors. Changes certainly need to be made, but there are some in the medical field (not doctors) that seem to think that they will be making more money with systemic change and nothing can be further than the truth. Nurses in California are not going to be making over $70 an hour and nurses in general are not going to be making $40 an hour. The cost of medical treatment will go down but that money isn't going to be going to staff. It will go to the consumer. It isn't that simple. The healthcare system problems are complicated. First, there is no such thing as free healthcare. Second, a lot of the innovations in medicine is from the USA and the current system. Other nations are free riding off the advancements in the high cost US system. Further, without cultural and lifestyle changes in the USA, any single payer system will collapse. A big part of being affordable is having a population that doesn't have a high number of people with expensive ailments like diabetes, morbid obesity, heart disease and other issues. That means changing the US diet, and that involved a whole host of other issues. Then you will be dealing with a system that is not good at treating rare or expensive ailments like the current US system. In places like Europe, they just let people that are in seriously ill situations die. Hospice care, etc. We will not be able to go to the lengths that we current do treating cancer or other major diseases. I am okay with that, but some will not. Last, a lot of people will not like a payer system because they have good medical insurance. So there are a lot of political considerations, cultural, etc. Further a lot of doctors are going to fight it as well because they will not make as much. If someone is a victim of medical malpractice, will they complain that they are very limited in who and how they can sue? The system cannot be anything like the VA either, which is just a disaster.... and far more Americans are insured right now that people realize. We all know that it needs to be fixed, but how isn't as simple as a lot of Democrats believe. Also, as someone that has lived in Europe and have a lot of family members around the world in government controlled healthcare systems, it isn't the oasis that a lot of people think. They have far better preventative care, but once they are actually sick with anything serious, the care they get isn't as good from what I have seen. My wife graduated from medical school and has said the same thing when talking to friends that are doctors outside the USA. A lot of what we can do here isn't available in Europe even.
So we need to keep physician pay where it is.... and up nurses pay.... and greatly cut the cost of healthcare? We also have a lot of people complaining of the system being understaffed. Something (or many things) will have to give if there will ever be some form of a single payer system that is affordable and reasonably staffed. I don't think that we are long term going to see the pay of nurses increase, it is already higher than it has traditionally been.
Good luck with getting a single payer system that includes everyone in the USA. Also, for the poor a single payer system would be a down grade from what they have now since Obama Care. Arguably it would be better for the working class and and the lower end of the middle class that do not qualify for free healthcare and do not make enough to make the premiums worth it. I suspect the most successful way to attack the system and change it is to appeal to small and large businesses, with the idea that premium costs for them will go down and it will be a net positive for them and the greater economy. Even then, it has to be a system that is more hybrid based, because if it is a system like some of the ones I have been exposed to, people are not going to be happy with it in the USA, at least those that vote.
I don't disagree with you. I think the bulk of the money needs to shift back into the hospitals themselves instead of lining the pockets of some corporate billionaire. Hard to do? Yes, but in an ideal world, you'd have the same amount of cost, the money would just shift hands. If anyone's pay should be cut, it's the crooks in the suits that literally make money by denying people care. Furthermore, when I talk about increasing pay, I'm talking about meeting people in the middle. The pay has already been increased. There are plenty of nurses making $110/hr traveling. A hospital staffing 150 nurses at $110/hr and then staffing 400 full timers at $35/hr is roughly the same thing, no? Tell that to the patients and the patient experience... What I'm saying is instead, Pay retention, and increase salaries by $5/hr so your employees feel more valued. You're smart enough to realize you could have 800 nurses for the same price of 550 in the scenario...all with raises... These are real world scenarios. Or how about government payouts where one hospital system gives it's employees $500 and another one gives them $5k. Another real world scenario. I'm not talking about adding money and increasing costs. I'm talking about a smart allocation of what's already being spent. Believe me, it's noticed. When places can't hide it and employees see it, they leave. That's what these employees are advocating for. Evening the scales by reallocating the money that is being spent. Taking a little bit of the profits from the suits in the offices, stopping the insane payment of travel nurses and putting that money into employee well being and retention, which brings about better quality of care for patients, a better/less stressful working environment, less burnout, longer careers, and all kinds of good stuff. I appreciate your points, but the money is being spent already.
I didn't say there was an easy fix but there's a huge problem with the healthcare business being done to make billions. The cancer treatment business makes billions. I've seen people mortgage their homes to afford treatment. That's disgusting. Even then, it's no guarantee the cancer will go away. I'd say less quality care is better than not being able to afford care without going broke. I don't have to worry about it but plenty of others do. Those are the ones screwed in this country where healthcare costs are ridiculous. It's a shame when people with no scruples or empathy for the sick squeeze every cent they can out of them to get rich in the healthcare business.
Was talking to a younger man the other day with the doctor. The doctor palpates an area and jokes "the massage is free." Man jokes back, "nothing is free." We all laugh. We all know it's true. We all hate it.
I really think you’re misunderstanding me here, you’re acting like I’m saying they aren’t important, I’m telling you based on a lot of experience, speaking to nurses first hand etc that you’re putting them on some sort of pedestal. Everybody is burned out, did you not see what I posted about 80-100 hr weeks constantly on call? Nurses are burned out, doctors are, resp therapists. And doctors don’t get shifts (unless they’re ER) Unfortunately you haven’t done your homework and seem to be coming from a point of emotional connection rather objective view point. All healthcare workers, whether doctors nurses , etc comprise a small fraction of total healthcare expenditure. The rest, well you can look it up. But to your point about pay, don’t worry it’s already happening and one of the reasons people don’t go into things like primary care. Spend 10 years training in the most grueling and humiliating conditions to assume legal liability for something no matter who messes up (nurse, tech etc). But that’s right, the surgeon that spent 12 years training how to cut into people can’t “wipe their own ass without a nurse” LOL
12 years of training sure…but the same doctors are the ones who can’t write their own orders. I remember the sissy fits the doctors threw when they had to do computer order entry.
