Our Great Helath Care System

[Minimalist]

[Isun]

Republicans are fine with it. Course they pretend that the cost isn't passed to the rest of us anyways, but that is another subject.

[Cato]

There's so much wrong with our healthcare system and the bill is outrageous, but why the fuck would you go to the ER for this?

I don't recall which hospitals are involved, but I heard a story on NPR that a couple hospitals in the NYC area have reorganized and restaffed their emergency departments. Understanding that some people have no other choice and trying to keep their trauma staff from routine care, these hospitals have what looks and feels like a regular doctor's office attached. Based on initial assessment, those with non-emergent needs are herded to the 'other' side. The claim is that the process is actually saving cost.

[Jenny A]

At risk of sounding *gasp* conservative, which I am fiscally, the problem with healthcare is that it's divorced from the market.

We mostly pay for healthcare with insurance. The insurance is not analogous to fire or auto-insurance as it's intended to pay for ordinary expected expenses as well as catastrophic ones---sort of like if your auto insurance paid for oil changes. The result is something like this: Suppose that unless you had grocery insurance, you had to buy groceries at a highly inflated price to allow the government and grocery insurance companies to get 80% discounts from the grocery store. You take your cart into the dirty ill stocked store with only one brand name per item and no prices. Some items have been deemed unnecessary by the government (like chocolate, wine and inexplicably wheat gluten) and are not carried or must be bought elsewhere or cannot be bought on your plan though they are there on the shelves tantalizing you. You fill your cart with this non-competitive stuff and pay a $5 co-pay at check-out. A year later your grocery insurance is doubled because you and the people in your grocery insurance group bought too much.

[vorlon13]

Don't know if this would work everywhere, but the hospital my sis works at charges everybody $3 to use the ER.

For some reason, they have seen a huge drop in unnecessary visits from the un and underinsured and from folks with non-emergency conditions. Everyone who shows up gets a referral card to the adjoining clinic if it turns out not to be an emergency.

[Cato]

At risk of sounding *gasp* conservative, which I am fiscally, the problem with healthcare is that it's divorced from the market.

I agree with this and everything that followed, but must add that the supply in the market is artificially suppressed. There are only so many seats alloted for medical school.

There are other reasons for costs being high. By government decree through licensing practices there is an abusurd amount of care that only doctors are allowed to perform by law that registered nurses could easily do. Medicare/Medicaid also artificially establishes an artificial minimum charge for services.

The direct marketing of prescription drugs is also a hideous practice.

[Jenny A]

At risk of sounding *gasp* conservative, which I am fiscally, the problem with healthcare is that it's divorced from the market.

I agree with this and everything that followed, but must add that the supply in the market is artificially suppressed. There are only so many seats alloted for medical school.

There are other reasons for costs being high. By government decree through licensing practices there is an abusurd amount of care that only doctors are allowed to perform by law that registered nurses could easily do. Medicare/Medicaid also artificially establishes an artificial minimum charge for services.

The direct marketing of prescription drugs is also a hideous practice.

Agreed!

[The Grand Nudger]

We mostly pay for healthcare with insurance. The insurance is not analogous to fire or auto-insurance as it's intended to pay for ordinary expected expenses as well as catastrophic ones---sort of like if your auto insurance paid for oil changes.

Because that is what the customer wants and that is what the market demands. You gonna tell me that both the customer and the market are wrong? People like to get something for their money. Insurance companies still have a mint practically attached to them - so I don't want to hear any bitching from that corner either.

[Dystopia]

Why not just implement a universal healthcare system on a State level and quit the bullshit?

[Cato]

Why not just implement a universal healthcare system on a State level and quit the bullshit?

Attempts by states to exert any independent control over anything meaningful results in the federal government withholding funds. The open secret is that plenty of programs are managed at the state level, but heavily subsidized by federal coffers. The federal government lays down the law and if a state strays too far it will stop sending money.