The American Health Care System Sucks

[xchrom]

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-american-health-care-system-sucks-2013-10



Politicians say a lot of dumb things, but perhaps the dumbest thing they say is that the U.S. has "the finest health care system in the world." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that in 2012, echoing a common Republican talking point in opposition to health care reform.

No. Stop saying this. The American health care system sucks.

We spend about twice as much money per person as our peer countries to achieve roughly the same health care outcomes — and despite all that spending, 48 million people in America lack health insurance coverage.

Health care spending in the U.S. is astronomical. In 2010, Americans consumed nearly $8,000 worth of health care per capita, twice as much as most other rich countries. The second-highest spending country, Switzerland, spent $2,640 less per person than we did.

I've been to Switzerland. A cappuccino at Starbucks in Zürich costs $8. Nothing should be 50% more expensive here than it is there.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-american-health-care-system-sucks-2013-10#ixzz2jKKodpDJ

[Rex]

1. Yes and look how Republicans acted when we decided that

we want to separate work from health! They shut the fucking government down! Their fear of the working class not living in terror day to day is getting worse. Of course there are only two emotions repukes know - fear and hate.

[marmar]

2. I forget who coined the term, but he or she called it a "wealth care" system.

[xchrom]

3. indeed. nt

[geek tragedy]

4. Dennis Kucinich (!) said it best when he said we're paying

universal health coverage, but we're not getting it.

[Wounded Bear]

5. We don't have a healthcare system....

we have a healthcare industry.

Big difference.

[jsr]

7. +1.

[polichick]

10. Exactly - a good example is the cancer industry...

Our leaders allow big pharma, the chemical and food industries to pump America full of toxins that cause cancer - supporting all these industries (including the cancer treatment industry) at the expense of the peoples' health. So disgusting.

[jsr]

11. And the cancer industry produces malignancies like this doctor:

http://www.freep.com/article/20130806/NEWS05/308060139/Oakland-County-oncologist-charged-with-Medicare-fraud

Oakland County cancer doctor accused of unnecessary treatments, defrauding Medicare of millions
11:34 AM, August 7, 2013
By Zlati Meyer
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

Patients who didn’t have cancer were diagnosed as such. Sick patients were given too-high doses of powerful drugs. Some in remission were sent for unneeded chemotherapy. End-of-life patients were pumped full of drugs that couldn’t help them anymore.

These millions of dollars of medical treatments and tests were billed to Medicare in a pricey health care scheme run by metro Detroit hematologist oncologist Farid Fata, according to a federal criminal complaint filed Tuesday. The complaint says Fata intentionally misdiagnosed patients “as having cancer to justify unnecessary cancer treatment.”

The Oakland Township doctor — who owns and operates Michigan Hematology Oncology Centers with offices in Clarkston, Bloomfield Hills, Lapeer, Sterling Heights, Troy and Oak Park — is also accused of fabricating diagnoses of related ailments; submitting bogus claims for unneeded services, such as chemo, PET scans and cancer and hematology treatments for patients who didn‘t need them, and insisting seriously ill patients undergo chemo before letting them go to the hospital.

In one case, the federal complaint outlines, Fata prescribed 56 doses of rituximab to a non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma patient over two years, when the norm would be a dozen in two years. In another instance cited in the complaint, Fata allegedly forced a sick man who’d fallen down and hit his head when he came to the center to get his chemo before he could be taken to the emergency room — and the man later died as a result of the head injury.

[polichick]

12. How horrible!

[Humanist_Activist]

20. So I'm assuming the people behind this grand conspiracy live in a space station orbiting Earth...

so they don't get exposed to these cancer causing toxins that fund their own industries.

Don't poison the well with your bullshit please.

[polichick]

21. You do know that most of the "health and beauty" products available...

in U.S. drug stores have ingredients that are illegal in much of Europe and Scandinavia?

Also, corporate heads can afford to buy organics for their families, whether in health and beauty or food categories.

Not a conspiracy - just profits at the expense of the peoples' health.

Don't poison the well with your ignorance please.

[OnlinePoker]

23. Just trolling, but isn't Scandinavia part of Europe? n/t

[polichick]

25. Well, technically - but it's a very distinct region with great protections...

for consumer products.

[Humanist_Activist]

24. First off, most of that "organic" stuff is just as dangerous or untested as the "non-organic" stuff.

Hell, the "100% all natural" industry is big business, and most of it is snake oil, and some of it is harmful, and none of it has any oversight by any regulatory agency.

Second off, you still haven't proven shit, considering that the worse carcinogenics are from air and water pollution, which means that it doesn't matter if you get your makeup from if what you breath in will still increase risks of cancer, same for food and other consumables. You can't buy yourself immunity from those.

[polichick]

28. Funny though that our leader has an organic garden for him and his family...

but hires Monsanto tools for the administration.

[Humanist_Activist]

30. Uhm, that garden isn't big enough to feed his family, it takes...

at minimum, .2 acres to feed one individual in a sustainable way, and that's a strictly vegetarian diet, by the way, you aren't going to raise cattle on that. Not to mention it isn't closed off from pollutants in the environment.

[polichick]

31. Happily for greedy capitalists, a lot of people like you don't expect products without toxic crap.

[Humanist_Activist]

33. What the fuck are you talking about?

No really, this is infowars type CT bullshit you are spouting.

Those greedy capitalists are greedy capitalists, and they eat the same toxic crap as you and me because they are shortsighted assholes, no conspiracies needed. Is that clear enough for you?

[polichick]

34. You're a riot. Do you think the 1% eat the same shit most Americans eat...

or buy their health and beauty stuff at Rite-Aid? 1%ers buy first rate food at small boutique shops and have health and beauty products shipped from Canada or Europe. Hell, I don't even buy that stuff at typical U.S. stores.

Problem with too many Americans is they don't expect better. They assume someone in the gov't is looking out for their health, when too often Congress is only looking out for profits.

[Humanist_Activist]

37. That health and beauty shit at boutique shops isn't much better than the crap at rite-aid, just...

overpriced.

And I really don't understand your focus on health and beauty products, while I'm sure some of them contain many carcinogenic ingredients, that is NOT the major vector for carcinogens to enter your body, which would be food, water, and air, indeed, most of the that health and beauty shit washes off, quite literally.

The funny thing is that you are basically saying they are seeking out products that are specifically EXEMPT from government oversight due to heavy lobbying by the supplemental and alternative medicine industry, when the safety of many of those products has yet to be demonstrated in any clinical setting.

[polichick]

40. It's about ingredients - you read them and buy products without toxins...

The point is you can't trust gov't to look out for health in the U.S. - it's all about profits, whether you're talking about insurance companies, treatment for illness, or the foods and products we use.

As the op suggests, we don't have real "healthcare" in this country.

[liberal_at_heart]

39. +1

[Puzzledtraveller]

6. Healthcare should start from the time you are born.

Last edited Thu Oct 31, 2013, 04:19 PM - Edit history (2)

No applications, no filings, you are born, you get your social secuirty number and you are done. When you start working you pay into it. You can even receive special incentives, paybacks, like safe driver discounts, for being proactive with your health. Never have a hospital stay in so many years? Here's a payback check. No co-pays, no deductibles, no paperwork you have to keep up with, no worry about lapses in coverage, moving it from here to there. If you are disabled and can never work then you need do nothing else, because you will already have full coverage from the time you took your first breath as your mother before you. Any healthcare entity and professional, medical, optical, dental, etc that oprates in this country and takes 1 penny of public money, or operates tax free is in the network state to state. Your SSN is your medical data file and your eligibility which starts on Day 1.

[Wounded Bear]

8. Now that's a winner....

[ChazII]

13. +100

Along with that should be the patient's right to go to any hospital anywhere in the country not just in the patient's home state. If I choose to take my son to a children's hospital in another state instead of the one right in my home town that will be my right with no one giving me their two cents worth.

Yes, I have experience with this and yes, it did happen. In 1990 my insurance company did not want me taking my son to Children's Hospital of Los Angeles and wanted me to take him to Phx. Children's. The only reason we were able to go to CHLA and have two more debulking operations was because it was their cranio-facial team that diagnosed his plexiform tumor due neurofibromatosis.

[Puzzledtraveller]

16. In my city alone

Every major hospital is a non-profit, most of this was carried over from times when they were actual charities ran by various churches. Today they largely operate tax free. What I would see is any healthcare facility that operates under special tax status, public/government funding, that is to include healthcare professionals, any health entity and professional that wishes to operate in the US and receives 1 penny of tax payer help is in the network.

[ChazII]

32. What I still would like to see

even though my son is an adult, is the freedom for parents to take their child to any hospital in the United States without having to worry about someone somewhere in the system telling them, "No, you can't take your child to the hospital of your choice."

I don't know if it would be a good thing to go back to having hospitals run by churches or not. Here in Phoenix we were much the same way. St. Joseph's, St. Luke's, Good Samaritan a few Baptist hopitals.

[leftstreet]

15. +1

[polichick]

17. Alas, this is only possible for countries that put people over profits...

Amazingly, the American people seem to believe they don't deserve your civilized and compassionate plan.

[ProSense]

22. The thing that makes it suck

is the cost (which is what the OP is about) and lack of access.

New Front in the Fight With Infant Mortality

By EDUARDO PORTER

As the health care bill that was to become known as Obamacare was making its way through Congress in 2009, Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, sought to block the requirement that health insurers cover a minimum set of health benefits determined by the federal government...Kyl’s proposed amendment embodied the conservative view: The Affordable Care Act that passed Congress in 2010 is an unacceptable intrusion into the private decisions of American families and businesses.

The Senate Finance Committee, by a vote of 14 to 9, rejected the amendment, opting for a different approach that could change, in subtle but profound ways, the nature of the American social contract.

Pregnant women, across the country and anywhere along the income spectrum, will for the first time have guaranteed access to health insurance offering a minimum standard of care that will help keep their babies alive.

The benefit may seem narrow. But it offers the best opportunity in a generation to tackle one of the United States’ most notorious stigmas: an intractably high infant mortality rate that hardly fits one of the richest, most technologically advanced nations on earth. If it succeeds, it could provide Americans with an alternative view of how government can serve society.

- more -

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/business/health-law-is-a-new-front-in-the-fight-against-infant-mortality.html

[B Calm]

9. K&R

[brer cat]

14. Our system is totally out of control.

I was in the hospital for one day for spine surgery and the bill to medicare was 95K. ONE day. If we don't get these costs under control, we will all be bankrupt, ACA or not.

[truedelphi]

19. Even Bill Maher, an Obama supporter, ACA supporter, if ever there was one,

Agrees that we needed to put in price controls.

The example he used was the hip that is used when someone has an artificial hip replacement. That hip
costs under $ 400 to manufacture. but it is sold to the medical clinic or hospital for over $ 13,000!

And then the patient (or their insurer) pays some $ 22,000 for the hip and the operation.

Things really need to be shaken up.

[brer cat]

29. The hospital billed medicare

51k for surgical implants which in my case was a couple of rods and a few screws. I think the people who authorize that type of billing need to spend a long time unemployed.

[truedelphi]

35. Yikes. However, on the bright side, I bet as a child, you never thought

You'd have a $ 100,000 spine!

[brer cat]

36. It is my opinion

that for the money involved, they could have transplanted the spine of teenage boy instead of leaving in my 66 year old model.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

18. Ever since debt became a product the GOAL has been to see to it EVERY citizen is in debt.

[GeorgeGist]

38. Could it be ...

That the US has no fucking system!?