Lets Stop the Bickering and Fix the Health Care System

[elleng]

By JOSH GOTTHEIMER and TOM REED

'If either of us were building the American health care system from scratch, we’d probably end up in different places.

We have contrasting ideas — one of us is a Democrat, the other a Republican — about what ails the system and how to reshape it. But this is not the time for more partisan fighting. It’s time to build a better system, even if incrementally, because that’s what the American people deserve. It’s time to put aside blame and stabilize a health care marketplace where premiums are expected to rise by more than 15 percent in most states and millions of people are worried about obtaining or affording coverage.

This week the 43-member House Problem Solvers Caucus — which we lead and which is almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans — released a carefully drafted compromise to shore up the struggling insurance exchanges.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/opinion/bipartisan-health-care-reform.html?

[Not Ruth]

1. My understanding is that healthcare in Mexico is so much cheaper and better that Americans go there

Let's just copy what they do

[earthshine]

2. My very American wife just had her teeth fixed in Mexico.

The work she needed would have cost $45,000, and with a dozen visits and procedures done over two years.

The American dentist, the endodontist, the periodontist, and the oral surgeon colluded to set up this two-year plan.

Two visits to Mexico in two consecutive weeks, and $4000 later, she's done. Really done.

[Not Ruth]

3. This site claims that health care is $350 a year

Even if it is more, it is still a deal.

http://hacienda-sol.com/EARL/

[Igel]

4. Average dentist salary's a bit lower than 1/10 of what it is in the US.

So sure, we'll let dentists make about $830/month in the US. Put that on the (D) program: Cut medical professional salaries by a bit more than 90% as "cost saving."

I keep saying that when your boss says they need to cut costs, the first thing you think is, "That's likely to be anti-worker and will either cut my salary, reduce the number of workers, or at the very least freeze my pay for a long time. How horrible." When word gets to suppliers, the first thing they think is, "They want to get the same thing for less. Where can we cut costs? Cheaper materials? Cheaper workers? Not refresh the tech? Where?" And the supplier's workers feel stressed.

But as soon as we're the boss of somebody like doctors and dentists, the first thing we think is, "Gee, I want to cut costs." And if anybody dares to complain, well, they're anti-worker.

Note that a bit less than 1/10 of $45000 is really close to $4000.

What you really did was offshore your wife's dental work to take advantage of lower labor and material costs and cut through red tape. For all the same reasons that anybody else offshores work.

Here's a time-consuming but socially useful way of cutting dental costs: If you live near a dental school, have them do the work. Takes longer because every step that the students/interns do is double checked before and after it's done. Never heard a complaint, though, apart from the time, from people who went there.

[earthshine]

5. Sorry, the local school only does fillings.

Did you read the part that many visits over two years were cut to two visits?

How about how the specialists colluded?

This OP is about problems in the American healthcare system.

Things cost too much, largely because of Dr.'s malpractice insurance, and the middling meddling of other forms of insurance company's.

Also, where those Dr.'s live, the cost of living is much cheaper.

Spare me your advice. No one asked for it.

You have just been put on ignore.