I am told that today’s session with the ‘Cyber Knife’, focused radiation therapy, will be my last then there will be re-evaluation of my condition and then decide what to move on to for my next treatment….maybe now I can get a bit of my energy back.
I know that health care is very expensive here but since I started my ordeal it seems that bills arrive daily…..makes one ask just what the Hell is going on with, according to some, the best health care in the world.
There are few….make that many….theories at why the costs are so prohibitive….here are a couple of observations….
One of the most talked-about policies in the national conversation around insurance is Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield’s decision in Connecticut, New York, and Missouri to deny claims for anesthesia for surgeries that went longer than a set time limit. It was greeted with huge uproar before the insurer backtracked, citing “misinformation” about the issue. For some, that’s exactly what this was, wrongly painting the insurer as the bad guy. For others, it’s a further sign that the private insurance system needs to go. Two opinions:
Eric Levitz, Vox:
- “People imagined patients waking up from surgery to find they owed thousands of dollars because their procedure went 15 minutes long,” writes the journalist. But this was a “cost control” that would’ve reduced payments for anesthesiologists who tend to exaggerate and overbill, says Levitz, stressing the burden would’ve fallen on those providers, not patients. Ultimately, if health care costs are to fall in the US, hospitals, physicians, and drug companies—which “charge much higher rates than their peers in other wealthy nations”—need to “accept lower payments,” Levitz writes. “Ideally, we would do this through a comprehensive system of public cost controls and insurance provision. Failing that, we need private insurers to drive a harder bargain with the most expensive doctors and hospitals.”
Dr. Adam Gaffney, MSNBC:
- Gaffney of the Harvard Medical School redirects the blame onto insurers. “Obviously, most health care spending goes to health care provision,” he writes. “The relevant question is how to realize savings while upgrading care for everyone, and the best answer is by eliminating the gargantuan waste that is our private insurance system.” “The traditional, public Medicare program spends about 2% of its total revenue on administration. Private insurers, by contrast, take 10% (or more) of your premium for administration and profit,” he writes. “This fivefold difference accounts for the more than $400 billion in savings that the Congressional Budget Office projects could be saved annually from eliminating private insurance and moving to ‘Medicare for All.’ Instead, we’re basically setting that money on fire.”
As prices keep rising more and more Americans are searching for answers….
Public sentiment regarding the nation’s for-profit healthcare system—an outlier among wealthy nations—has dominated the national news in recent days following last week’s killing of an insurance executive in New York.
On Monday, just hours before a suspect in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was arrested by police, a new Gallup poll found a 62% majority in the U.S. believe the government should ensure all Americans have healthcare coverage—the highest percentage in more than a decade.
Just 42% of people in 2013 believed it was the government’s responsibility to make sure everyone in the country had health coverage—a low since the beginning of this century.
The poll found that a majority of Republicans still believe ensuring health coverage is not the government’s job, but the majority has shrunk since 2020.
That year, only 22% of Republican voters believed the government should ensure everyone in the country has healthcare, but that number has now grown to 32%.
The percentage of Independents who think the issue is in the government’s purview has also gone up by six points since 2020, and Democratic support remains high, currently at 90%.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/universal-healthcare-poll
Those findings alone should sway the government into action…..HAHAHA!
With the incoming people profit is far more important than the health of your mom or dad….enter those scary death panels that the GOP was warning us about back in 2012….but who knew they would be warning us against their policies?
I will be out of pocket most of the day so this will be my only offering for your consideration.
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
I understand that cyber knife is best tech/procedure so reason to be optmistic. If health care ever goes universal the one inclusion should be that eveyone gets the same top level not limited service based on what you can pay like Obamacare. He boasted then that now millions now had healthcare. Lower levels were so limited to say all have healthcare was another big lie.
CyberKnife is high tech but it kicks your butt….I agree healthcare should be equal and balanced chuq
As someone keeps pointing out, universal health care is so complicated that only the other 30 biggest countries in the world have mastered it…all but US.
Is avaliability mastered ?
I have always loved that excuse myself….LOL chuq
All the sources I can find attribute the high cost if medical care in the US to the excessive amounts paid to doctors, nurses, and hospital staff in comparison to what people in those positions earn in other countries.
Yep now we know why everyone wants to specialize…..my first visit to the pulmonologist was billed at $700…..for about 15 minutes….a bit excessive chuq
Here is an example of how insane the health care system has become. This was in an article in the New Yorker earlier this week.
The author’s daughter got a rather serious cut on her finger so like any normal parent he took her to the ER at the local hospital after making sure it was “in network” so his insurance would cover it. All in all it ended up with her getting the wound cleaned and just a few stitches. Total time to do the procedure was less than half an hour. His only out of pocket expense was a $150 co-pay.
He wanted to see exactly what all of the charges were and what the insurance company actually paid, so he requested to get all of the billing records for the call.
The ER’s total bill for what amounted to a half hour visit to give a local anesthetic and a few stitches was…. Are you ready for this? Over $11,000. That is not a typo. Eleven thousand dollars.
The insurance company “negotiated” that down to around $2,400 (I don’t remember the exact amount) and that is what the company paid.
So tell me how any of this makes any sense? $11,000 to stitch up a relatively minor cut, “negotiated” down to $2,000?
That has been my experience with hospitals. They bill high and settle for about ten per cent of the bill.
My question gas always been how much do they try to collect if the patient is uninsured. I have heard they try to get all of it. Hospitals deny they do they and claim they settle for less, but from experience and from what I gave
heard, that is not true. They sometimes for the full amount.
and healthcare is about to become worse than ever if it is able to survive at all.
I fear so especially with that q2uack Oz at the helm chuq
When I was a child we had a single country doctor who charged three dollars for an office call and who would run a bill for people who needed credit….the only hospital was 20 miles away and there was no ambulance service anywhere near to us … so without a willing neighbor, we got nowhere …Medicines were he same… mostly cheap enough to afford…could run a credit bill at the local independent pharmacy — no such thing as “Preventive Medicine with the exception of flu and polio shots — mandatory for school kids …got all of mine…got them again in the military….my dad and my grandpa had no health insurance from their employers and could not afford to buy it for themselves… even with all that going for them, my Grandpa managed to live to be a healthy 88 years old– worked digging graves in a cemetery until the last evening of his active life– spent four days on a ventilator in the hospital and died …daddy was 56– smoked himself to death… never went to a hospital, never went to a doctor…we all relied on old fashioned home remedies for almost everything… we got by fine..we could do it again if we had to and it looks like we are going to have to after all….
Sicilian grandmother medicine was unique: olive oil, brown soap, garlic and incantations. We also rubbed Vicks on the bottom of our feet (to draw out the poisonous evil spirits).
my dad actually believed in eating Vicks salve for congestion…it is a wonder I am alive …and mustard poltices for sore muscles …and whiskey mixed with vinegar and honey for coughs…..
The terrible cost of healthcare in the USA is one of the most talked about things in other countries. It is held up as the international standard of greed where medical treatment and health insurance are concerned. Not something to be proud of.
Best wishes, Pete.
Indeed nothing to hold up as a success. chuq