General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I am for medicaid for all [View all]Hoyt
(54,770 posts)etc.
I think we have a lot of built in costs here that are going to be difficult to cut out, at least short-term, although they should be. It's not just doctors. Our nurses make 40-50% more than UK nurses. Who is going to tell them they are going to get a pay cut, or have to do a lot more for same pay?
We need to restructure our healthcare system -- as well as patient expectations -- but that ain't going to happen overnight.
I often think we'd be better off if we lost the Revolutionary War and were still part of UK, better healthcare, better welfare, less guns, slavery would have been abolished sooner, etc.
Sure, we can cut CEO's pay. That'll make about 0.0002% difference in what we spend on healthcare. We can cut drug prices in half, but then drugs are less than 10% of healthcare expenditures and drugs like that for Hep C probably save us a lot more in inpatient and chronic health care than the treatment costs.
If the government were willing to come up with the upfront money to set up systems for controlling healthcare costs and improving outcomes, they could take that over from private insurers. We'd say 6% - 8% by cutting them out. If we could do that overnight, our premiums might go from $700/month to $644/month. Somehow that is not a life-altering savings.
Of course, those private insurers currently handle most of Medicare administration from adjudicating claims, answering beneficiary questions, credentialing providers, trying to prevent fraudulent providers (and there are a bunch of them), etc.
It really is more complicated than we think. Whatever, it's darn sure time to start working on rationalizing the system and figuring out how to cover everyone. But it's not going to change any time soon. We need to cover everyone and that means increasing taxes, including a lot of people in the so-called middle class.