Why Does Health Care in the U.S. Cost So Much?

[Gadawg73]

The short short version? Lack of a free market.

Let me simplify it for you in two words: Big. Pharma.

They have the government in their pockets and have been successfully keeping out the small man for decades. There is no profit in cures, there is LOTS of profit in treatment for cures and even more profit in making up new diseases...as they currently do now.

The Drugging Of America baby...gotta love Capitalism on Steroids!

No. The FDA drives up the cost of R&D by political fiat. Also, the federal government pulls all the strings because the government is heavily involved in providing funding for testing and research.
if the federal government would simply regulate to insure drug safety instead of having it's fingers in the pie, the drug industry could get it's job done much cheaper.
Now, some will argue that why a particular drug is sold for x in Uganda while Americans pay Y, is pretty simple. The price to Ugandans is heavily subsidized by other agencies.
If anyone is thinking government price fixing, watch out. You'll see how the research and introduction of new pharmaceuticals grinds to a screeching halt.
It is not capitalism that creates the expense. Rather it is government interference with the marketplace that creates the high cost.

What does any of that have to do with over prescribing of all drugs by doctors, kickbacks to doctors and a nation addicted to prescription dope?
How does a governmet that just passed a Gramps and Granny DOPE Act do any of that? We pay 60% of all prescription drugs NOW as taxpayers.
Over half the drugs Americans take are not even needed. My mother is 88 and takes no prescription dope. I am 56 and take no drugs. Guess why we are healthy?
We are a nation addicted to drugs. It is epidemic and the drug companies planned it all 40 years ago.

 

[Gadawg73]

I would say that 80% of health care dollars spent on an indivudual in the USA is druing the last 20 years fo their life.

What to do about this? Let them die earlier?
Draft those over 50 into the military?

Also does not the same conditions exist in other advanced countries rhat only spend 1/2 ofwhat the USA does per person on health care?

imo we spend twice much as the other advanced countries per person on health care becuase the medical industry in the USA can get away with charging that much. Many of our medicines are made overseas. And there the medicines cost 1/2 or less what they do in the USA.
Adversly those medicines made here also sell in other countries for 1/2 or less of the US selling price.
Why?
Think about it.

You are right on that figure of 80 % but the years figure is in the LAST 2 YEARS OF THEIR LIFE.
But you need to look at what that $$ is spent on before you draw your conclusion that all of that $$ is spent on live saving measures.
My father died last May at age 88. Let me show you his bills the last 2 WEEKS of his life:
1. Home health care: one of the biggest rip offs in the game. Many utilize it and it is a huge savings of $$ as it keeps them out of the hospital but the providers take advantage of it and treat everyone and anyone in retirement,assisted living and nursing homes. Go to any assisted living facility and they will have 2 or three billing hundreds of thousands to Medicare from a facility that may have 100 residents.
2. Nursing home therapy: This is how it works: A doctor will have a patient near death, my father went into the hospital on May 15, this year and 5 days later they transfered him to a nursing home at age 88 for "rehab". We had a DNR order in place PER DAD'S LIVING WILL AND HIS WISHES, and they refused to honor it. Happens all the time. Why? Because the meter stops then and medical industry LOVES keeping the meter running. Now guess what rehab they give my Dad for 6 days in the nursing home? OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY to an 88 year old man at $150 a session plus speech therapy at $150 an hour to the tune of 13K for 6 days. The doctor signed off on all of it.
I can give you a half dozen more incidents the last 2 weeks of his life. $700 ambulance ride for 1 1/2 miles. The assisted living facility offered to take Dad and the hospital demands the ambulance.
And you wonder why we are in the crisis we are in?
Took me 5 days and a lawyer for the crooks in Fort Myers Florida to honor my father's living will. He also stated publicly he never wanted life support. We had written signed documents notarized: NO life support.
But they always ignore it. CHA CHING.
Total bill for the last 2 weeks of Dad's life was $80,000.00+
All a waste of the taxpayer's $$. He wanted none of it.
THAT is the disease care indusrry we have in America. A ripoff most of the time. 60% of all health care dollars in America treat 4 % of the population. 8 out of 9 of the illnesses they treat that result in death are PREVENTABLE.
But health care doesn't pay like disease care so where do you think the medical industry invests their $$.
It ain't health care brother. We do not have that here. Take a good look at the unhealthy citizens we NOW HAVE.
Wake up America. In 7 years the disease care community will control over 20% of GNP.
We have become a nation of village idiots.

 

[uscitizen]

Profit Spoon, Profit. As I say.

 

[Londoner]

We are a nation addicted to drugs. It is epidemic and the drug companies planned it all 40 years ago.

Like any business that must answer to share holders (rather than consumers), the Health Insurance industry needed to expand their market. Merely catering to sick people was insufficient -- too limited. So they targeted healthy people with a whole new slate of illnesses, for which they had expensive drugs & procedures. Of course, the health insurance industry signed on, mandating new drugs and treatments (and, of course, raising premiums to reflect this "increased" coverage). They got doctors on board by sending them on expensive, luxury junkets. The whole point was to load the system down with useless high margin products, and saturate the airwaves with visions of Lunesta patients floating in amniotic tranquility. (And of course they paid talk radio to call it the best system in the world. Ahh yes! Freedom. Choices! Sadly, they found enough idiots to buy into the most expensive, inefficient health care system in the world)

Before long there was a cure for having a bad day.

If this sounds too vague, I urge you to look into DSM 5. This is the famed list of official mental disorders. The goal of drug companies is to expand this list to include modes of behavior that used to be considered normal, like (say) various modalities of grieving. Then they invent an expensive (aka "high margin" drug) to "treat" the "disease". Then they give doctors an incentive to "push" the drug. The drug itself functions like any psychoactive property -- it makes you feel really good. You begin to need it, and it becomes a long term "management tool" like prozac.

But the larger point is this: the goal is to convince the entire population that they need excessive, micro-managed health care, as if there is a solution to every behavioral variation, and to maximize the take on every stage of care by loading it with high margin garbage. You don't want people to think they just need doctors for broken bones, antibiotics, and cancer -- you need to create a discursive universe where the whole population can be labeled "sick", so you can grow a super-expensive infrastructure of drugs and treatments. (Kinda makes ya sick, doesn't it) And god help you if you really do get sick. When I got in my car accident and they discovered I had a "cadillac plan", I faced an absurd quantity of procedures and over-charges that kept a small staff of lawyers busy for months. Shareholders demand profits. And they don't care where those profits come from. The main goal of treatment is not efficiency or health, but maximizing the amount of money that can be sucked out of every infinitesimal, micro-portion of care.

Go here to see how diseases are invented to capture the untapped market of healthy people. Welcome to the Free Market. It's not about freedom; it's about doing everything possible to suck money from the stupid, and use the profits to buy politicians and media for the purpose of controlling laws and opinions.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon.../DN-frances_20edi.State.Edition1.100ebd5.html

 

[uscitizen]

Yep I think diseases and such are being invented by the drug companies to fit the drugs effects that they develop.

Restless Leg Syndrome?
Next will it be restless weenie syndrome?


Then lets not forget prescribed drugs to counter the side effects of other drugs.

 

[loosecannon]

I would say that 80% of health care dollars spent on an indivudual in the USA is druing the last 20 years fo their life.

What to do about this? Let them die earlier?
Draft those over 50 into the military?

Also does not the same conditions exist in other advanced countries rhat only spend 1/2 ofwhat the USA does per person on health care?

imo we spend twice much as the other advanced countries per person on health care becuase the medical industry in the USA can get away with charging that much. Many of our medicines are made overseas. And there the medicines cost 1/2 or less what they do in the USA.
Adversly those medicines made here also sell in other countries for 1/2 or less of the US selling price.
Why?
Think about it.

You are right on that figure of 80 % but the years figure is in the LAST 2 YEARS OF THEIR LIFE.
But you need to look at what that $$ is spent on before you draw your conclusion that all of that $$ is spent on live saving measures.
My father died last May at age 88. Let me show you his bills the last 2 WEEKS of his life:
1. Home health care: one of the biggest rip offs in the game. Many utilize it and it is a huge savings of $$ as it keeps them out of the hospital but the providers take advantage of it and treat everyone and anyone in retirement,assisted living and nursing homes. Go to any assisted living facility and they will have 2 or three billing hundreds of thousands to Medicare from a facility that may have 100 residents.
2. Nursing home therapy: This is how it works: A doctor will have a patient near death, my father went into the hospital on May 15, this year and 5 days later they transfered him to a nursing home at age 88 for "rehab". We had a DNR order in place PER DAD'S LIVING WILL AND HIS WISHES, and they refused to honor it. Happens all the time. Why? Because the meter stops then and medical industry LOVES keeping the meter running. Now guess what rehab they give my Dad for 6 days in the nursing home? OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY to an 88 year old man at $150 a session plus speech therapy at $150 an hour to the tune of 13K for 6 days. The doctor signed off on all of it.
I can give you a half dozen more incidents the last 2 weeks of his life. $700 ambulance ride for 1 1/2 miles. The assisted living facility offered to take Dad and the hospital demands the ambulance.
And you wonder why we are in the crisis we are in?
Took me 5 days and a lawyer for the crooks in Fort Myers Florida to honor my father's living will. He also stated publicly he never wanted life support. We had written signed documents notarized: NO life support.
But they always ignore it. CHA CHING.
Total bill for the last 2 weeks of Dad's life was $80,000.00+
All a waste of the taxpayer's $$. He wanted none of it.
THAT is the disease care indusrry we have in America. A ripoff most of the time. 60% of all health care dollars in America treat 4 % of the population. 8 out of 9 of the illnesses they treat that result in death are PREVENTABLE.
But health care doesn't pay like disease care so where do you think the medical industry invests their $$.
It ain't health care brother. We do not have that here. Take a good look at the unhealthy citizens we NOW HAVE.
Wake up America. In 7 years the disease care community will control over 20% of GNP.
We have become a nation of village idiots.

Best post of the week.

I might add that we actually need death panels.

 

[MarcATL]

for the record, when was the last time you heard a news headline warning of the inpending doom of ADHD? Did anyone tell you that you HAD to go get the ADD vaccine or you might die? Live it to a liberal to ignore the bullshit they are standing in.

Jackass....

Actually, I'm glad you brought that up.

Just watch the news....any news on any channel, station or network. More specifically, watch the commercials that play during the news.

Count how many Big Pharma commercials you see.

Now tell me...who ELSE is in their pockets?

Here's a hint: The Media. The Corporate Media.

 

[MarcATL]

Yep I think diseases and such are being invented by the drug companies to fit the drugs effects that they develop.

Restless Leg Syndrome?
Next will it be restless weenie syndrome?


Then lets not forget prescribed drugs to counter the side effects of other drugs.

Yep...gotta elbow itch sonny? Well you can bet yo bottom dolla dat dey gotta pill for dat too.

Cha CHING!!! Gimme! Gimme! GIMME!!!

 

[MarcATL]

We are a nation addicted to drugs. It is epidemic and the drug companies planned it all 40 years ago.

Like any business that must answer to share holders (rather than consumers), the Health Insurance industry needed to expand their market. Merely catering to sick people was insufficient -- too limited. So they targeted healthy people with a whole new slate of illnesses, for which they had expensive drugs & procedures. Of course, the health insurance industry signed on, mandating new drugs and treatments (and, of course, raising premiums to reflect this "increased" coverage). They got doctors on board by sending them on expensive, luxury junkets. The whole point was to load the system down with useless high margin products, and saturate the airwaves with visions of Lunesta patients floating in amniotic tranquility. (And of course they paid talk radio to call it the best system in the world. Ahh yes! Freedom. Choices! Sadly, they found enough idiots to buy into the most expensive, inefficient health care system in the world)

Before long there was a cure for having a bad day.

If this sounds too vague, I urge you to look into DSM 5. This is the famed list of official mental disorders. The goal of drug companies is to expand this list to include modes of behavior that used to be considered normal, like (say) various modalities of grieving. Then they invent an expensive (aka "high margin" drug) to "treat" the "disease". Then they give doctors an incentive to "push" the drug. The drug itself functions like any psychoactive property -- it makes you feel really good. You begin to need it, and it becomes a long term "management tool" like prozac.

But the larger point is this: the goal is to convince the entire population that they need excessive, micro-managed health care, as if there is a solution to every behavioral variation, and to maximize the take on every stage of care by loading it with high margin garbage. You don't want people to think they just need doctors for broken bones, antibiotics, and cancer -- you need to create a discursive universe where the whole population can be labeled "sick", so you can grow a super-expensive infrastructure of drugs and treatments. (Kinda makes ya sick, doesn't it) And god help you if you really do get sick. When I got in my car accident and they discovered I had a "cadillac plan", I faced an absurd quantity of procedures and over-charges that kept a small staff of lawyers busy for months. Shareholders demand profits. And they don't care where those profits come from. The main goal of treatment is not efficiency or health, but maximizing the amount of money that can be sucked out of every infinitesimal, micro-portion of care.

Go here to see how diseases are invented to capture the untapped market of healthy people. Welcome to the Free Market. It's not about freedom; it's about doing everything possible to suck money from the stupid, and use the profits to buy politicians and media for the purpose of controlling laws and opinions.
Allen Frances: Let's not confuse 'good grief' with illness | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Opinion: Viewpoints

Yep, they have these questionnaires they ask high-school students now that ask things like, "have you ever been very sad?" "have you ever been very angry?" Of course the answer is always yes...then they use that to say they have some emotional disorder and recommend a prescription of some pill.

This is the Capitalism that now persists.

A lotta people need to SNAP OUT OF IT!

 

[MarcATL]

The short short version? Lack of a free market.

Let me simplify it for you in two words: Big. Pharma.

They have the government in their pockets and have been successfully keeping out the small man for decades. There is no profit in cures, there is LOTS of profit in treatment for cures and even more profit in making up new diseases...as they currently do now.

The Drugging Of America baby...gotta love Capitalism on Steroids!

Do you ever get tired of thinking up excuses where you can blame some big faceless entity for a problem?
High medical costs? Big Pharma.
High energy costs? Big Oil.
High Unemployment? Big corporations.
COrruption in Government? Big corporations.
Discrimination? Big Whitey.
etc etc.

It must really be sad to be you, a mere pawn in the game of life at the mercy of every two bit combine, trust, or conspiracy in the world.

Quit spewing reactionary RW talking points and WAKE UP you dumb CON!

Snap out of it bitch!

 

[editec]

Why Does Health Care in the U.S. Cost So Much?

Socialist payments systems (which include for-profit HC insurance companies, FYI) pay into a capitalist market.

Neither the payer OR the supplier have any vested interest in keeping down costs. (private insurance companies actually make more money as the cost of HC goes up, ya know?)

This system therefore increases demand while doing nothing about also increasing supply and keeping costs down.

A simplistic , explanation, I'll admit, but one that describes the event succinctly enough.

 

[The Rabbi]

Why Does Health Care in the U.S. Cost So Much?

Socialist payments systems (which include for-profit HC insurance companies, FYI) pay into a capitalist market.

Neither the payer OR the supplier have any vested interest in keeping down costs. (private insurance companies actually make more money as the cost of HC goes up, ya know?)

This system therefore increases demand while doing nothing about also increasing supply and keeping costs down.

A simplistic , explanation, I'll admit, but one that describes the event succinctly enough.

Typically I think you're a moron. But I have to say you have succinctly described the problem in fewer words than I have seen it done before. You are exactly right: When people spend other people's money they aren't very concerned how much it costs.

 

[Gadawg73]

Why Does Health Care in the U.S. Cost So Much?

Socialist payments systems (which include for-profit HC insurance companies, FYI) pay into a capitalist market.

Neither the payer OR the supplier have any vested interest in keeping down costs. (private insurance companies actually make more money as the cost of HC goes up, ya know?)

This system therefore increases demand while doing nothing about also increasing supply and keeping costs down.

A simplistic , explanation, I'll admit, but one that describes the event succinctly enough.

We demand too much from the health care system.

 

[LilOlLady]

CEOs and BONUSES and PROFITS

 

[LilOlLady]

20 million illegal aliens and 500.000 anchor babies.
Doctor, medical supply companies, rest homes and hospital FRAUD.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Let me simplify it for you in two words: Big. Pharma.

They have the government in their pockets and have been successfully keeping out the small man for decades. There is no profit in cures, there is LOTS of profit in treatment for cures and even more profit in making up new diseases...as they currently do now.

The Drugging Of America baby...gotta love Capitalism on Steroids!

Like that nasty West Nile epidemic we were sold?

No Einstein, like the tons and tons of mental diseases that they now have tons and tons of handy dandy pills to keep the fools placated...like ADD, ADHD, all sorts of made up crap...

"...made up crap...", huh?? And, you attribute your analytical/pharmacological-skills to what??

If you have some dire need to create an alliance with those that supplant actual-knowledge with rhetoric, I'm sure the "conservative"-movement would be more-than-happy to extend a helping-hand.

If your opinions are more faith-based, you're (already) in-possession of an orifice where those opinions can be held.

Your other-option would be education....as inconvenient as you might find such an option.​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

"That’s because 20 percent of patients account for 80 percent of spending, and that 20 percent is made up mostly of the chronically ill."

Source: AARP Magazine

Wonderful. AARP went in the bag for Obamacare and is now ready to throw it's members under the bus. This is typical of the supporters of Obama. They cannot admit they are wrong so they've gone off the deep end for this guy.

Gee.....generalized-statements! They're always so helpful....as Absolutes go. ​

Now, the most frigtening aspect of the health care debate is the spectre of a government take over of the system. With the government setting prices , more or less fixing the marketplace, the costs stay the same or continue to rise. What occurs is the marketplace shrinks as health providers leave the industry. Fewer doctors and fewer facilities means care MUST become rationed. In other words largely unavailable.

You're on-deck!!!

It's (now) YOUR TURN to point-out (in Health Care Reform legislation), from where your derive your factoids!

If your preference is the "conservative"-option

....fear-not, but keep stepping! It's a rather-congested area.​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

It starts with Reagan ignoring the Sherman Act, and the consequent merger mania of the 80s and 90s. In 1998, after 400 mergers, two conglomerates emerged in control of the entire health insurance industry. Lacking competition, they could raise their rates without fear of being disciplined by the market.

Profits were directed less and less to innovation, and more and more to advertising, doctors (who were sent on lavish junkets in exchange for the promotion of "designer illnesses" & expensive procedures), and Washington (for protection against foreign competition and anti-trust enforcement).

Many states like Iowa only have two options (some only one), i.e., there is no competition to keep prices down. Most densely populated metropolitan areas only have one or two insurers, which, again, allows them to raise rates without market discipline.

In order to address the lack of competition, Health insurance monopolies began to do business under pseudonyms to hide their identities and construct a false impression of competition. The largest is UNH, which sold products under such names as OptumHealth, Ovations, and AmeriChoice. The second largest, Wellpoint, calls itself Unicare and BlueCross/Blue Shield, to give the impression of competition. [Prior to Reagan, this kind of thing was illegal and seen as anti-consumer. This is why health insurance was affordable for almost 1/2 a century -- because competition was protected]

Because the absence of competition has allowed them to maintain such a high margin, they have built a bogus universe of "administrative" costs, which costs pay the inflated salaries of an overfed bureaucratic layer of upper management and CEOs who sit between Doctor and patient, contributing nothing. This is what monopolies do; they create lush positions for a do-nothing class of cronies. How do they get away with it: because they have escaped competition and thus don't need to innovate and lower prices. They pump profits into the elections of politicians who will keep their scam going.

So why doesn't the voter do something about it? The health insurance industry pours money into talk radio and television. Their advertising dollars have allowed right wing news sources to dominate the discussion. They have convinced innocent, well meaning voters that there is no monopoly -- and that any attempt to protect the consumer by expanding competition and breaking their monopoly is socialism.

Listen to the Right Wing posters on these message boards. If you point to the explosion of health costs and the lack of competition, they shake with anger. Why? Because Limbaugh, Savage, Hannity, Levine, Beck or Coulter have taught them not to trust anyone who suggests what has happened to insurance costs since the mega-merger explosion of the 80s. These posters are literally in a hermetically sealed information bubble. And they can't leave the bubble because their leaders have convinced them that the reality-based universe is filled with liberal demons who only seek to fool them. It is so sad, because they are destroying the very free market they claim to represent. They know not what they do.

Welcome to Bedlam!!!!!​

 

[thereisnospoon]

for the record, when was the last time you heard a news headline warning of the inpending doom of ADHD? Did anyone tell you that you HAD to go get the ADD vaccine or you might die? Live it to a liberal to ignore the bullshit they are standing in.

Jackass....

Actually, I'm glad you brought that up.

Just watch the news....any news on any channel, station or network. More specifically, watch the commercials that play during the news.

Count how many Big Pharma commercials you see.

Now tell me...who ELSE is in their pockets?

Here's a hint: The Media. The Corporate Media.

Foil, Marc. Lots of foil. For where there is not a racist under every bed a conspiracy certainly is.

 

[thereisnospoon]

"That’s because 20 percent of patients account for 80 percent of spending, and that 20 percent is made up mostly of the chronically ill."

Source: AARP Magazine

Wonderful. AARP went in the bag for Obamacare and is now ready to throw it's members under the bus. This is typical of the supporters of Obama. They cannot admit they are wrong so they've gone off the deep end for this guy.

Gee.....generalized-statements! They're always so helpful....as Absolutes go. ​

Now, the most frigtening aspect of the health care debate is the spectre of a government take over of the system. With the government setting prices , more or less fixing the marketplace, the costs stay the same or continue to rise. What occurs is the marketplace shrinks as health providers leave the industry. Fewer doctors and fewer facilities means care MUST become rationed. In other words largely unavailable.

You're on-deck!!!

It's (now) YOUR TURN to point-out (in Health Care Reform legislation), from where your derive your factoids!

If your preference is the "conservative"-option

....fear-not, but keep stepping! It's a rather-congested area.​

You don't like the facts. so you throw mud at the wall to see if something sticks.
Facts, brother. Facts. Not doing to well for you.
Of course the WH website is going to paint Obamacare in a positive light.
I have to ask, who is more intelligent, the motorcycle in your avatar or you?
I am betting on the bike.