Healthcare - Spiraling out of control

M

mikecarquote

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Jul 6, 2008
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According to the news, the average health insurance policy for a family now costs over 15K per year, and pays for less than ever before. USA healthcare is the most expensive in the developed world. USA healthcare some of the worst quality in the developed world.

Those who have to choose between insurance and feeding the family better hope there are no serious illness or accidents. They will owe everything they have worked for and everything they will work for in the future, to the doctors and hospitals. It is spiraling out of control and only getting worse.

/rant
 


geomark said:
Medical tourism FTW
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heh, yep, always love meeting people like that.

Me: "So what you are doing in Thailand? Living here, or???"

Him: "Nope, just came for some dental work".

Me: "huh???"

Him: "well, it's about the same price to either pay a dentist in Sweden, or have a holiday in Thailand + pay a dentist here".

Me: "ahhh"
 
There are many things the US can learn from Singapore. The income tax rate is less than 10%. Average people pay around 5%.

Yet the Government provides Subsidized healthcare and runs hospitals. The government run hospitals are better than the private ones in many respect.

Subsidized housing - Yes the government builds majority of the flats and distributes it to citizens with a heavy subsidy. You can get a new flat from the government for the same price as a 20+ year old private apartment.

Yes, they don't send their young men to die abroad in the name of some stupid reasons ...
 
nmridul said:
There are many things the US can learn from Singapore. The income tax rate is less than 10%. Average people pay around 5%.

Yet the Government provides Subsidized healthcare and runs hospitals. The government run hospitals are better than the private ones in many respect.

Subsidized housing - Yes the government builds majority of the flats and distributes it to citizens with a heavy subsidy. You can get a new flat from the government for the same price as a 20+ year old private apartment.

Yes, they don't send their young men to die abroad in the name of some stupid reasons ...
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Singapore has a healthy economy with way more exports per capita than the USA.
 
Eat healthy, exercise, and get a high-deductible policy policy and health savings account (HSA). (My insurance is less than $200/month.) And vote for Ron Paul!
 
And if you don't have insurance the doctors and hospitals will rape you with a huge bill that if you can't afford health insurance you certainly can't afford. Check into the hospital for a day and you're looking at $20k without surgery.....the insurance company would end up knocking that down to about $4k but you have no power to do that on your own. That's why you need to carry at least a major medical policy which with high deductibles can be brought down under $100/month for an individual, because even if you have to pay the first $5k plus out of pocket the rates will still be brought down to the insurance company rates and not the anal rape no insurance rates.
 
sublimeguy said:
And if you don't have insurance the doctors and hospitals will rape you with a huge bill that if you can't afford health insurance you certainly can't afford. Check into the hospital for a day and you're looking at $20k without surgery.....the insurance company would end up knocking that down to about $4k but you have no power to do that on your own. That's why you need to carry at least a major medical policy which with high deductibles can be brought down under $100/month for an individual, because even if you have to pay the first $5k plus out of pocket the rates will still be brought down to the insurance company rates and not the anal rape no insurance rates.
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That's a nutty number you just pulled out of your ass. I spent 3 weeks in a hospital and it was about 20k. My daughter stayed 4 days recently and it wasn't 4.5k.

While you are correct that the insurance does get lower rates - the numbers you are using are wrong.
 
And even if you can afford insurance, they might decide not to cover you since they're profit driven and have entire departments dedicated to finding reasons not to cover you. Great system!

charlesmartel said:
Eat healthy, exercise, and get a high-deductible policy policy and health savings account (HSA). (My insurance is less than $200/month.) And vote for Ron Paul!
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What was Ron Paul's answer to the question about what happens to an uninsured man who needs 6 months intensive care..

"I practised at Santa Rosa hospital in San Antonio and the churches took care of em', we never turned anybody away from the hospitals."

So his suggestion is to rely on charity from the churches? good luck with that if you need $200k worth of cancer treatment.
 
stmadeveloper said:
That's a nutty number you just pulled out of your ass. I spent 3 weeks in a hospital and it was about 20k. My daughter stayed 4 days recently and it wasn't 4.5k.

While you are correct that the insurance does get lower rates - the numbers you are using are wrong.
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My wife was just in the hospital and the bill as $28k, insurance paid under $5k. Earlier this year we had a baby, bill was $32k with a c-section....insurance paid $6.5k.

I guess it all depends on which hospital you're at and how many thousands of dollars they bill for a roll of gauze or a needle.
 
stmadeveloper said:
That's a nutty number you just pulled out of your ass. I spent 3 weeks in a hospital and it was about 20k. My daughter stayed 4 days recently and it wasn't 4.5k.

While you are correct that the insurance does get lower rates - the numbers you are using are wrong.
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A co-workers husband broke his arm last month and with all the follow-up visits she had to pay their full deductible ($4K) which means the services were well over that amount.

Costs are also regional dependent. Our newspaper has done reports that show our hospital costs here in WI are some of the highest in the nation.
 
johnmatrix said:
And even if you can afford insurance, they might decide not to cover you since they're profit driven and have entire departments dedicated to finding reasons not to cover you. Great system!
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All human activity is driven by the profit motive.

Please learn some economics, your posts are embarrassingly bad on these topics.
 
I - along with two other owners - spend about $120,000/year on insurance for ourselves and employees. The rate of 15K/year/family is right on the mark.

The first problem is when we call the healthcare system "insurance". It's not.

Fire Insurance is insurance. 1000 people in a town all buy a policy and pay in, hoping to NOT collect. Maybe one house burns down that year - the unfortunate family collects and we all go one.

Health insurance is really health CARE. We all use it - we all KNOW we will use it. And statistically it is cheapest when a) you have a large pool of people and b) we use it regularly for preventative services.

As a fiscally conservative person I get VERY frustrated by both parties because neither side knows what the fuck they are talking about. People who say the "single payer" plan is bad obviously don't understand statistics.
 
Posts like this make me glad to be Canadian.

CanMCross200.jpg
 
sublimeguy said:
My wife was just in the hospital and the bill as $28k, insurance paid under $5k. Earlier this year we had a baby, bill was $32k with a c-section....insurance paid $6.5k.

I guess it all depends on which hospital you're at and how many thousands of dollars they bill for a roll of gauze or a needle.
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WTF! Prices are really that high?! I haven't been to a hospital in the U.S. in over 15 years. By comparison: C-section at Bumrungrad International in Bangkok, one of the top hospitals in the world and quite plush and cushy, costs THB65k which is a little over USD2k. I had foot surgery a couple of months ago at Siriraj, less than USD700 for everything.

You save a bundle and get better care. Just sayin'

And Sharksfan points out a major obvious problem - that's it's not "insurance" but that's what everyone calls it and it just totally distorts the market when wrapped up with all the other bs surrounding health care.
 
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