Amerifats, can you explain to an ignorant bong exactly why US private healthcare costs so much when everything else in your country costs a quid? In Britain the price of a normal childbirth is around £5,000 but in the US it's around $30,000, which when converted is roughly 5 times more expensive.
What's gone wrong in Amerilardland that's caused your healthcare to skyrocket? I mean, I can come buy a 400 bedroom mansion in America for the same price as one cupboard wardrobe in London.
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Sorry, self bump. Need answers.
>in the US it's around $30,000
No it isn't. an uncomplicated childbirth is only around $3000.
The prices hospitals charge are set arbitrarily high, the actual funds they receive from insurance companies are all fairly standard and much lower. Rates for services are set by Medicare (federal gov't) and procedure payouts for non-medicare patients mimic this pricing schedule.
Morons without insurance don't realize this pricing game is going on and panic when they get a $40,000 hospital bill for a broken arm, then go bankrupt trying to pay it like fools. If they had insurance (or a lawyer) to haggle for them, the total cost would be roughly that of the medicare rate.
The US healthcare system is massively inefficient, however. Tons and tons of administrators and desk jockeys. It's a fucking mess but it's not as bad as people seem to think it is.
t. a person who works in healthcare
Take insurance companies out of the picture for a moment. Without any insurance, just a straight up private transaction, would childbirth still only be $3000?
Why on Earth does Medicare set the rates for what is supposed to be a private sector? Is it just so that the Govt can be sure of how much they're going to need to pay out to cover Medicare patients? And does this shit have any effects on the healtcare market?
Prices are inflated to make insurance pay more, if pricing was transparent and allowed for the patient to choose where to get tests and operations, the prices would plummet
The American Medical Association decided in the 1950's that there were too many GI's becoming doctors and projected that this would result in lower wages for doctors. So they began instituting and lobbying for stricter regulations on medical degree accreditation. My girlfriend's career path so far has been 4 years of under grad(neuro-science), 4 year PHD(Radiology), 4 year MD(neurosurgery), 1 year internship, 3 year residency, 2 year specialization training all just so she can look at diagnostics and tell you that you have tumor or some shit.
That is basically 16 years of training 2-300k worth of debt before you can become a specialized doctor to earn about 200k a year and work 60-80 hours a week.
Back in the 1950's most people were able to become full MD's in less than 6 years(which is basically how long it takes for someone to become a doctor in Europe. Note that European doctors can't practice medicine in the states, but US doctors are in high demand in Europe due to their specialization training(also note that American doctors earn far more money than European doctors)) The best doctors in the world are American trained, but since the medical industry has lobbied that every doctor must meet such a high standard everybody is paying for that whether they need brain surgery or just an arm put in a cast. The medical lobby is probably the best protected lobby in America, everyone trust their doctors, so it's easy for a politician to look like he is doing something in your favor by following whatever regulation the medical industry recommends.
No, the hospital is going to bill you the $30k. Why? Because they can. The majority of their customers are going to be though medicare/medicaid or private insurance that have special or previously agreed upon billing rates.
It would be a sea change if hospitals were required to actually publish their prices. But even the hospitals and doctors can't tell you at the time of service what is actually going to be billed.
Pricing Transparency/Legitimate Pricing
Amerifats BTFO
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>Take insurance companies out of the picture for a moment. Without any insurance, just a straight up private transaction, would childbirth still only be $3000?
yes, and that type of transaction is getting more common as people learn about the system. thing is, most people never even ask what treatment costs up front. it's an odd bit of psychology.
>Why on Earth does Medicare set the rates for what is supposed to be a private sector? Is it just so that the Govt can be sure of how much they're going to need to pay out to cover Medicare patients? And does this shit have any effects on the healtcare market?
The medicare rates are used as a benchmark as to what things should cost simply because they're already there and the gov't spends a lot of time and energy compiling them. Think of it like the NTSB car tests - the results are still applicable if you are a driver in Sweden or Vietnam or whatever, even though your country didn't spend the money to do the tests.
however since medical treatment is a fairly custom thing, as every patient is different, there is obviously wiggle room for certain line items. 90% of all payouts are +-5% of the established rate, though.
Lol it is NOT 3,000 my sister just had a child and it was 6,000 out of pocket. The issue is that she is a biomedical engineer so the gubmint makes her and her husband pay for it while 18 niggresses shit out babies for LITERALLY free.
Also, government regulation is why our healthcare is so over priced
>Prices are inflated to make insurance pay more
When I get my billing summary, the price the insurance pays is dramatically lower than the charged item.
30,000*
Also, she had to have a c-section becuase the child was frank-breech so it was more expensive
another fun fact - the AMA (american medical association) controls the number of medical students that are allowed per year. while our population basically doubled from 1970 to around 2010, the number of med school seats barely increased. There's always news stories about doctor shortages etc etc but guess what - it's on purpose to keep wages high.
this is slowly starting to change as unis are opening up new medical schools. most of the ones that I've seen are really small, though.
Sorry I'm slow with replies, just trying to digest all this and work it in to my argument for scrapping the NHS.
So they bill you 30k simply because they can and they know you're dumb enough to pay it? So it's not actually down to anything specific other than greed? I thought you fuckers were supposed to have competitive markets?
Cheers lad, will watch these in a little bit.
>
The medicare rates are used as a benchmark as to what things should cost simply because they're already there and the gov't spends a lot of time and energy compiling them. Think of it like the NTSB car tests - the results are still applicable if you are a driver in Sweden or Vietnam or whatever, even though your country didn't spend the money to do the tests.
Ah, okay. So does this not have any real negative impact upon the market and the pricing?
She had no insurance? Another Amerifat above said that without insurance it would be 30 grand.
"ama controls the number of medical students that are allowed per year--to keep wages high"
hmmmmm
Because the government is involved in insurance pricing and regulation, the end result is skyrocketed costs. Hospitals & Docs charge astronomical amounts because they only see so much of what they bill from Medicare/Medicade. They keep going higher because they can and they have to in some cases.
Add in frivilous lawsuits, and insane malpractice costs. and it make sense they charge what they do. If a hospital was given the option of charging an insurance company $30,000 vs $4000 cash out of your pocket, they'd take the cash EVERY TIME.
Also: Artificially keeping residency slots low.
Its the same with how federal loans made tuition rise.
the federal college loan situation is far worse, really. medicare rates are only updated every 5 years and really don't change all that much. federal underwriting of student loans has basically created 3-5% inflation in higher ed, per year, entirely across the board. ivy league schools are going to cost over $100k per year within a decade or two.
the government really needs to stay out of propping up higher ed and mortgages. it's bad fiscal policy that only helps schools and banks while hurting the consumer.
Good question, she DEFF has insurance. I didn't think to ask that at the time idn what her insurance covers.
Very high cost of getting products approved by fda. Collusion between big pharma and doctors/ hospitals.
So, if the gubment were to simply pull out of fucking with that market the prices would likely come right down?
Surely the cost of getting something approved by the FDA can't equate to a six-fold price increase over UK prices for every patient forever.
The US generates more lawyers and they like to find things to do.
hot
Long, arduous hours with short lunch breaks compounded over time into a litany of unhealthy foods being the main source of consumption (so much so that "health food" markets, which contribute to gentrification, are now just about the only place bar straight from the farm to get something decent for you), making the populace fatter and fatter. Couple that with the growing existential depression of the American people and thus the amount of alcohol, tobacco and black market substances they consume, and you get a bunch of health problems. That's just the surface, too.
>they'd take the cash EVERY TIME.
you can actually do this in a lot of cases. I've seen it quite commonly in dermatology, for instance.
also it pays to shop around if you ever need to have MRI or CT scans. there's often outpatient labs that will do the work for a fraction of what you would pay at a hospital. MRI and CT scanners are cash machines for hospitals. Same in dental - standard rate is $100 for a digital phosphor x-ray that consumes $1 worth of materials and is instantly available on the screen. It's pure profit.
fuck off europoop
You'd be surprised. My dad works in pharma and meets with the fda constantly. The costs associated with developing a product, trialing it, and bringing it before the fda are outrageous. The work is also shitty and boring, requiring high salaries to keep talent. It's a broken system. As for the cost of prescriptions, high corporate taxes are to blame. The company makes the pill, gets taxed up the ass, and passes it on to the consumer
>be forced to pay taxes on healthcare for everyone and have to join the queue if you need a major operation because there's a waiting list and possibly die waiting
>Get a job and pay a fraction of your salary every month instead, towards a company for a healthcare plan and be first in line when something goes wrong
Which is more immoral here? Why should i have to put my health at risk if i get sick, because some dick head junkie i don't even know has been waiting longer, and die when i have to wait sometimes 6 months for a liver transplant?
And what about lifestyle choices. If i choose to be a fat fuck, go to the doctors and they refuse to treat me because it was my fault, then where the fuck has my money gone? Who are you to say i can't be treated? Socialised medicine is a stain on humanity.
But like I say, the US price for childbirth (as a raw transaction) is five times that of the UK and it's not as if the UK hasn't got the same societal issued you have, like fatties, druggies, drunks and the like. So when I can buy a bloody mansion in the US for the price of a one bedroom house in England but I can't afford a treament over there that I can here, there is something going on that's fishy.
>It's a broken system
What do you think it needs in order to fix it and bring it back to a point where it works without relying in ripping everyone off?
We do research and development, which is expensive. You come from a shit country that loves the results of our R&D but you don't give anything to obtain it. If America wasn't ridiculously generous to every other country and hoarded SOME of the wealth we accumulate, we would all be obscenely rich.
It's kinda BS that the US underwrites the costs of research for Europe. For some reason we allow US companies to sell pharmaceuticals to the EU for less than they sell within the US. Perhaps an export tax is in order.
Medical and pharma companies overcharge ungodly amounts for everything forcing the insurance companies to pay which in turn screws the patient.
Trump proposed to just buy pharmaceuticals from Canada where stuff is 10 times cheaper to lower the cost for Americans,
but of course Republicans and Democrats were like "Yeah na we can do that" because they are getting their pockets lined from these greedy drug companies.
Same thing happens with our military which is why our defense spending is crazy and companies fight tooth and nail for defense contracts
so they can charge Uncle Sam $1,000 for a box of nails.
The NHS buys your items wholesale from US providers you fucking retard. You don't give them away for free
Well, one side is that the US leads the world in medical research and it's paid for on the backs of those who are sick.
When you buy aspirin in a hospital and it costs $40 on the bill, some money goes to research.
Another side, the ugly side, is just the greedy big pharma trying to secure more and more money for themselves. I don't think western medicine is all that good, but it's expensive and flawed enough that the FDA won't invalidate them so you end up always needing them.
I blame the illegal anchor babies that get free treatment at hospitals and are never required to pay.
firstly, that price is wrong, secondly, you pay for that birth service from the day you get your first job to the day you die. sounds more expensive to me.
You are buying testing materials and machines at cost and for no profit, AFTER we did the research to create them, build them, and test them in the first place. Thanks for making my argument for me. And they say MY country's education system is shit.
Americans pay double for their health compared to most civilized countries
>Another side, the ugly side, is just the greedy big pharma trying to secure more and more money for themselves.
Another moron who bought into dem propaganda. Pharmaceuticals are less than 10% of healthcare costs.
No shit retard, that's how business works.
Ya know, 10% of the British population use private healthcare now. Quite surprising when you think about how the NHS is the national religion. I was having a quick glance at health insurance prices today and they were mostly around the 100 quid a month mark, which shocked me some.
no tax plz brexit gon kil uz
It often does come back to pharma being arseholes, but it's such a vague thing and it's a hard thing to use in an argument.
I don't know what an anchor baby is mate, I've not heard that term before.
Well, I read about the pricing and the internet never lies. Also, an user in here who works in this area confirmed to me that a birth as a raw transaction would indeed cost 30k. Please don't try to turn this into a "my country better than yours" fight, I'm not here defending the NHS, I'm actually here to strengthen my argument in favour of removing the NHS.
Good going, guys. You literally divided an entire nation full of innocent people and businesses, while making Shia LaBeouf look like a complete schizo.
Well played, gentlemen, well played indeed.
Ask the cash price for any procedure. Its always way less than insurance.
Do insurance and you've got to bill for your attorney, the insurances attorney, and their underlings to haggle it out as well as the other doctor on their end who verifies with them that what your doc did was normal and routine.
Then it you've got to hire someone to track this whole process down for every patient.
Then you add in Obamacharges like pregnancy insurance for men. and mandatory care for cancer and boomer fags which routinely exceed 150k a year in followup meds.
More or less this.
Essentially you put a dumb kid in a room with 2 Jews and a politician. One Jew runs the university, the other the bank. The Jews convince the kid that he needs a college degree at any cost. The kid is too dumb to figure out what interest means. Then, the Jews pay the politician to guarantee that loan with the wealth of the American people. Then, the politician makes it unlawful for the dumb kid to declare bankruptcy on this loan so that the people maybe get paid back.
I never said pharmaceuticals were 100% of the healthcare costs. I was talking about the general greediness of private healthcare companies really.
I don't think about this topic too much so I might not get all of these terms right, but I know that I dislike it all immensely.
Then what the fuck is the point of insurance?
>pregnancy insurance for men
wut?
Quick answer is that this country has really warped views on what a capitalist society should be.
One way this manifests itself is a belief that people should be able to eat whatever they want however much they want and never exercise. This causes people to just grind themselves into pieces and expect the healthcare system to just pick them up so they can get back to their fucking Golden Corral buffet line and drink their gallon of Coke per day.
Isn't there a drug for that? They'd say. So they would get one but there will usually be a side-effect. "Isn't there a drug for my side effect Doctor?" Sure here ya go.
Multiply this behavior by about 150million and you see how its getting out of hand and overloading the system.
One easy answer is tell people they cannot get a subsidy to pay for insurance unless they follow nutritional and physical guidelines.
The stupid thing is the average American would probably call a prevention strategy 'Communist'. Meh.
One word, BongFag.
>Liberals
Bong. I have another answer for you.
Midwife births at home. I can't tell you how many
friends I have that were kitchen sink babies.
Well it's because our pharmaceutical companies make so much out of selling drugs and as us Americans are hyperchondriacs (we diagnose ourselves with ilnesses based on no evidence whatsoever) the industry is booming and it makes insane amounts of money.
To be fair Shia does'nt need our help to look like an autistic cuck.
How does your Medicare work? Is it a plain tax like the NHS is in Bongland, or is the payment scheme weird?
>I'm actually here to strengthen my argument in favour of removing the NHS
>do the math on what you pay per month for medical, I can't seem to find any kind of conclusive numbers with a cursory google
>times 12
>times, say, 60 to account for starting work at 18 if you're not a lazy fucking rapefugee and you live til 78. plus it's a nice round number for maths
>that's what you pay in your lifetime, keep in mind that the numbers you find for what you pay a month is likely a fucking jewish lie, and that you'll need to really do the math.
then compare to the like $500 I've spent on only healthcare I've actually needed in all 12 adult years of my life thus far. there's your argument.
Fat People, people not paying bills, abuse, etc.
5000 for you, a ridiculous amount for behind the scenes government matching.
Why do hospitals have programs that provide surgeries for niggers and legal/illegal Latinos at greatly reduced prices and even for free? And is the cost passed on to everyone else? Who subsidises these?
If I were to make £30,000 a year for a 43 year career I'd have paid a total of £53059.85 in tax for the NHS during that career. The issue with your arguments, as fine as it is, is that British people will turn their nose away from it because they'll say "and what if I get hit by a truck and have to pay out 6 million quid?". They'd rather pay out of their arse in a way they don't notice i.e. taxation, than pay costs upfront privately that may be potentially cheaper than NHS healthcare.
>500 I've spent on only healthcare I've actually needed
not taking into account retarded ass obamacare making me pay for shit I don't need. so lets fine tune the math actually. before obamacare I was under my dads insurance and then paid 70 dollars a month for a good plan through my work for two years, almost never used it. then with obamacare I spent 170 a month for shit I didn't use that was crap coverage. then this year I stopped paying because they bumped my premium 150%. so, the 500 that I actually spent on doctors visits in those 12 years becomes 3380.
still less than the 5k a year figure I finally found off google for yearly cost of nhs.
religious/charity hospitals do that for feels.
also, successful hospitals have problems with getting rid of cash. most are technically non-profits so whenever they are running a surplus, they need to spend it. hence why all major hospitals are always undergoing major construction.
>insane malpractice costs.
They're capped at $10,000. The law to cap malpractice payouts was passed with the promise it would lower insurance costs. kek
the only reason getting hit by a truck costs 6 mil is because the healthcare system is paid by the government, so doctors fuck the government up on price to get rich. same thing happening with the insurance companies under obamacare. it wouldn't cost 6 million if people weren't fucking stupid and not doing their homework and educating themselves so they didn't get screwed.
>I thought you fuckers were supposed to have competitive markets?
We do in the sense that we could go to another hospital/doctor etc. But, they collude to keep their prices roughly the same. The GOP's repeal/replace plan for Obamacare unfortunately will not help either. What needs to happen is what Rand Paul has been saying for a while: allow people to purchase health insurance across state lines (increase competition) and allow them to buy it in very large groups (high volume / low price). This might not correct the price fixing that the healthcare providers engage in, but it will ultimately lower the cost to the average American when they actually need to use their insurance.
Kek wow. I needed surgery when I was younger, and the Hispanic financial director brought out two fat stacks of papers detailing every option of reduced costs/free procedures for blacks and legal/illegal Latinos and basically said I was the wrong colour to get any help. I wasn't even asking for a handout, just trying to negotiate down the monthly payments, which wasn't possible because the hospital was set on the lowest they were willing to go.
Thanks again, white privilege!
Also, it wasn't a charity/religious hospital I was at.
You can't get insurance across state lines? Doesn't seem very U N I T E D to me. How come you can't buy over state lines?
Collusion again, also faggot lobbyists. Something we hope Trump will fix.
>"""""""""""GOP""""""""""" Bill
This is a neo-con bill. Most of the right fucking hates it and have been vocal about that.
he's going to have to. in some areas, there are basically zero obamacare plans available to purchase. the system is completely fucked.
What have been Trump's proposals for health care so far? After he got elected I stopped following much of US politics, I was only in it for the salt.
He promised to kill borders, unfortunately he's acting like a faggot and letting Paul Ryan neo-cuck up his legislative dreams. that fitbit nigger needs to be removed.