Healthcare in the U.S. is a racket
Read Time:3 Minute, 11 Second
The following comment, written by MMA author Jim Moore, is in response to an article written by Norman Rampart, our overseas correspondent, on the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK:
Thank you for sharing this. And thank you for a candid view of NHS…warts and all. It sure beats what we DON’T have here in the USA.
You estimate NHS levies a trivial tax on your salary each month. For comparison, I pay 14% of my gross billing (I’m an independent consultant) for health insurance with a $5000 DEDUCTIBLE before I get a penny of reimbursement. In other words, in addition to the $600+ per month I pay for my insurance premium – a total of $7200 per year – I must also pay the first $5000 in medical expenses I incur before I receive any benefits. $12,500 per year in out of pocket medical costs before I get any relief whatsoever. Mind you, if I were to have a heart attack or some other “catastrophic” illness, my expenses would be essentially capped at that $12,500 level…plus some modest add-ons…so that I don’t lose everything I own to a major illness or accident. That’s what the $7200 per year buys…catastrophic healthcare coverage.
Moreover, our health system is geared to gouging every possible nickle they can out of patients. A recent article in Time Magazine points out just how bad the system is. One example is that hospitals routinely charge patients $5 or $10 for a single aspirin or ibuprofen. We can buy a bottle of 100 pills for less in a drug store. And where they really gouge us is with expensive tests, such as CT scans, in which they will perform the test multiple times, and bill many thousands of dollars for each test, when in many cases best-practice guidelines do not dictate the test at all.
Furthermore, charges will vary from hospital to hospital in the same city. One hospital might charge $3500 for a procedure and the next might charge $23,000 for the same procedure. The way hospitals get away with this is by recruiting providers to sign exclusive contracts with docs, other medical professionals, ambulance companies and so on. Docs must struggle for “admitting privileges” to send patients to a particular hospital, and so the hospital will demand that the doc’s patients are sent there and only there.
Healthcare in the USA is a racket…a way for big corporations, both for-profit and non-profit, to bilk the maximum amount of money from patients. In many smaller communities, the CEO of a “non-profit” hospital with be, by far, the highest paid executive in the community.
And, insult to injury, Consumer Reports just came out with a scathing review of hospital safety. This focus on money has led many hospitals to become lax on sanitation, so hospital acquired infections are rampant, and readmissions for hospital acquired complications are VERY common. US hospitals are VERY dangerous place to be.
I realize that you did not say all is well in the NHS, but you did express respect and admiration for a system that actually tries to place patients’ health first and does a reasonable job of managing costs and limiting the egregious profits enjoyed by US healthcare industries – from pharma to equipment to testing labs.
Your message belongs in the hands of our healthcare reform advocates.
We’d like to hear from you. Do you live in the UK? If so do you agree with the assessments laid out in this and the preceding article? Do you live in the US? Would you like to see nationalized health care, available to all, at little cost?
Follow MadMike’sAmerica on Facebook and Twitter, and don’t forget to visit our HOME PAGE.
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0
Bill has, I suspect, hit the proverbial nail on the head.
I have minimal knowledge of American healthcare so am in no position to contribute to a debate on it other than to say, I believe Britain is heading down the American road that I think exists now.
Profits.
You can’t run a genuine healthcare system for all your citizens if it is profit motivated.
End of.
It won’t work for ‘the people’ and people will die because they can’t afford it.
If that’s civilised behaviour I’m an Aardvark.
I said that because I seem to love saying Aardvark.
I hope Britains mental health system is there when I need it 😉
Peter, I could and may write a post about this, but in short I must say that the biggest problem with the health care system that it is tied to greed and entitlement. What I mean by that is many health care providers go into their work for the financial rewards and continually want more. The evidence of this is the number of doctors who choose to go into specialties as opposed to primary care. They go into specialties because they can charge more and thus make more money. Thus, it is not about better care, it is about more money.
Then there is the entitlement issue and it cuts both ways. There are people who take advantage, intentionally, of what is, essentially, free health care by going through emergency departments for routine care knowing that they have no intention of paying for it. Most of these people are judgement proof, that is, they have no tangible assets that the hospital can attach for payment. I know most people don’t recognize this but their are a lot of people who live strictly on a cash basis, never use banks, and do not hold down regular jobs. Some work as handy men, some trade in cars or other things but never have have traceable income. There are far more of these people, at least in the South than most people realize. Then there is the other side of entitlement. Many health care specialist believe that they have “sacrificed” by going to medical school and are therefore entitled to become rich. While I would agree that their education and skill set should bring them rewards beyond that of a person who graduates from high school and pumps gas, but how much is enough. Of course, there is the problem of others who are called the litigious entitlement bunch who wait for someone to make a mistake so they can sue them which causes many doctors to have high cost malpractice insurance. Again it gets back to money. Not that an incompetent physician should get away harming people because of his incompetence but doctors do not like to come down on other doctors because they think that “there but for the grace of God go I.” Again, it is about the money. So, inclusion, the problem with America’s health care is that it is tied to the almighty dollar. While capitalism and the free market may be well and good for some things, but it has made the American health care system mediocre at best. The health of a country’s citizens, especially one the world’s wealthiest countries, should not be a marketable commodity.
America is a health care crisis happening daily. We are an embarrassment to the world.
The Federal Government, in spite if state pushback, is implementing Healthcare Exchanges. These are designed to provide affordable care to all people. Open enrollment for the plans is this fall. Each state must have two providers (for example, blue cross and United). By a certain date next year, it will be mandatory to have health insurance. There will be a penalty to those that do not. This will be hard to impose for those that avoid filing tax returns. There will also be a penalty for organizations that do not provide affordable insurance and a penalty for those that do not. But one issue is that the penalty will be less than it costs to cover an employee on a plan. Watch for the world of healthcare to change dramatically over the next 12 months. More to follow.
For the USA, I would like to see a health care plan that is at least the equal of those in South Korea, Cuba, England, Germany, or Brazil.
For that matter, any country in the world with a developed economy and a freely-elected government. All have health care fr all of their legal residents, except one – the USA. That should be a nati9onal shame and disgrace. Instead, most believe the AMA and big Pharm propaganda that the USA has “the best health care in the world.”It is very good for trauma, not necessarily the best, but very good. In every other respect, it’s a disaster.