CAN THE GROWTH OF THE HEALTH CARE COST BE REDUCED IN THE US? Is it possible to reduce the health care cost in the US? Health care cost goes to basically three groups. Doctors and other medical professionals. Drug companies Insurance companies The only way to reduce cost is to make these groups reduce their profit margin, with the power of these groups, is it possible to reduce medical cost in the long run? I do not really see this happening.
A major part of the problem is that with so many uninsured people a medical bill ends up being a $1000 emergency-room bill instead of 2 or 3 $70 doctor visits for preventative care. For example: An uninsured patient has a heart attack, and has to go to an emergency room, get testing done, see a cardiologist, and so forth. $1000 is actually a pretty modest figure for the cost of that. If that same patient was covered for regular check-ups and screenings at little cost, the heart attack could probably have been prevented - but most uninsured people don't really have enough money for regular check-ups, so they skip them, and end up costing the system even more. Uninsured people often don't seek medical care unless they absolutely must. And by then, not only is it incredibly expensive, but it's too late and (if they survive) they will require more expensive long-term care for the remainder of their lives in many cases (check the long, long, long list of uninsured patients who now have to go through very expensive dialysis, paid for by the government, a number of times a week when their kidney failure could have easily been prevented if they were getting regular health screenings).
I have no idea what should the medical cost be. Why is an ER visit more than a thousand dollars? Why is a brain surgery more than half a million dollars?
Because if you have to go to the emergency room you really have no choice in the matter - so they charge more. Just like if you need life-saving medication - they know you can't go without it, so they charge you more. And if you need brain surgery, you probably need it to survive, so they charge you more. The problem is not with anything inherent in the system other than the fact that the healthcare system doesn't have sufficient checks on the greed of the bureaucrats and CEOs who run it.
my girlfriend has her insurance through her job at uh. she went to the emergency room a month ago after she got a bug in mexico. she's now being charged nearly $700 for it.
You are right of course. The question is should there be checks in place for medical costs. I can live without fancy cars or even no cars. I can live without beef steak or Ipod. I would not be able to live without treament for heart attack. Why not charge even more? Why not make people pay all their money for medical treatments? We pay close to 20% of GDP for health care, why not make it 60% I am sure people would pay for their family members to live.
Maybe the way to save medical cost is to let all the really sick people just die by injection like they do in some movies. If you cannot pay for it, you can die! I sure hope this administration comes up with good plan, but I am not holding my breath.
The healthcare plan is being put forth in order to save medicare. They gave out way more than we can afford in entitlements, and now in order to save themselves they are taking the whole pie. The plan will cost us 1.6 trillion in additional debt which is 12.6 trillion more than we have to spend. So if the goal is reducing costs spending an extra 1.6 trillion and covering more people is not the answer, unless you are the .gov and need the bailout for medicare.
500 is a pretty average cost for just walking into an ER with medical insurance. Seems reasonable to me, they have to keep that place ready for anything and when you take up a bed, it costs money.
So medical cost is just fine today. We should just let it keep on growing and in 20 years it will be more than half of GDP. I am sure that is the way the go. I am sure if they charged 2000 for ER visit or even 3000, people would still come. While we are at it why not charge them 10k for any ER visit?
You are right. the better option is to cover more people and raise the costs by 1.6 trillion. Then mandate everyone has coverage making the service drop in quality and increasing wait times.
because we have the best medical care in the world and we subsidize the drugs of the world by paying the majority of the R&D for drugs. Also we do not negotiate as a country for drug prices which is how we should do it since that is what other countries do and not doing it skews the market.
The Easiest way to reduce healthcare is to hurt the ama. If you let foreign doctors in that would solve a lot of issues.
That is your answer, should we let medical cost go unchecked? At what time would it too much? 50% of GDP 60% 90%? You seem to think the current system perfectly fine. I guess you are one of the small percentage of people who makes tens of millions and don't care what medical cost is.
the question should be imo, why has cost gone up so much in the last 10-15 years, particularly health insurance. is it because we're fatter?
AMA is only part of the equation. The drug companies, insurance companies are all making a whole bunch of money in this thing. I am not saying we should bancrupt the medical industry, but the cost has to be slowed if this country is to prosper.
