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Reading this article just down right sickens me... Corruption is everywhere, people who do the right thing get screwed over in the end. Why can't we just adopt

Reading this article just down right sickens me... Corruption is everywhere, people who do the right thing get screwed over in the end. Why can't we just adopt the European model or Canadian model. This is the very reason why I just want to leave the US.

pkaye 7y ago
> The hospital ranked No. 1 in Virginia by U.S. News & World Report is taxpayer supported and state-funded, not a company with profit motives and shareholder demands. Its taxpayer funded however.
- darpa_escapee 7y ago
  Total health expenditures have skyrocketed[1] along with the amount of hospital administrators[2] over the last few decades. This particular hospital is unlikely to have escaped the trend. [1] https://img.datawrapper.de/z8VeH/full.png https://img.datawrapper.de/z8VeH/full.png [2] https://gomerblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Doctors-and-administrators-e1557515296900.jpg https://gomerblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Doctors-and...
  - pkaye 7y ago
    I'd be interested in comparing the increase in US health expenditures compare to a couple countries in the EU.
    - dv_dt 7y ago
      Event if the relative increases were the same, the absolute costs are on a different basis. US health expenditures per capita is double the average EU nation. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#item-relative-size-wealth-u-s-spends-disproportionate-amount-health https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...
      - pkaye 7y ago
        I understand the US is spending more. I'm wondering what is the baseline to compare US spending growth rate.
        dv_dt 7y ago
        It's in those charts, ah maybe 4-5 down..
    - tzs 7y ago
      From 2000 to 2018, US per capita went from 4557 to 10586, so 2.3x as much. (All costs in this comment in US dollars per capita). Germany went from 2889 to 5986, 2.1x as much. France went from 2686 to 4965, 1.8x as much. Canada (yes, I know Canada is not EU...I'm tossing them in as a bonus) went from 2451 to 4974, 2.0x as much. Italy went from 2029 to 3428, 1.7x as much. Japan (another bonus) went from 1851 to 4766, 2.6x as much. UK, 1561 to 4070, 2.6x as much. Data here: https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm Uncheck the "latest data available" box to activate the range sliders and get a graph of costs over time. Two things stand out in the graphs: 1. US is more expensive over the whole range of the data (1970 to 2018). 2. They are all going up, mostly at roughly comparable rates. I just looked at the G7 countries above, but the same holds for most OECD countries. It looks like the US has averaged going up a little more than many of the rest, but it looks like nearly everybody has got a problem in this area.
  - RaceWon 7y ago
    > along with the amount of hospital administrators You have no idea. I work a small community hospital and we have 9 VP's and 44 Directors. One department has 9 employees and 2 Directors.
save_ferris 7y ago
It’s getting harder and harder to envision what retirement will look like for millennials, between this and student loans. An incredible number of boomers are going bankrupt due to medical expenses and have nothing for retirement. I like to think we’ll have together in 30 years, but if the last 30 years is any indication, we’re in big trouble.
- dv_dt 7y ago
  It's hard to envision any good outcome with the current system. But if we pass a universal healthcare like Medicare for all, and forgive student loans, and a number of other measures like girding against climate change, then for the first time in long time I could a positive trend for the majority US residents.
  - jorblumesea 7y ago
    Sure, but that would require progressive policies implemented by electing progressive politicians. US voters seem to screw themselves over time and time again by voting for the status quo or in some cases regressive politicians. So long as people keep voting for those who promise no change, why would anyone expect anything to improve?
  - rayiner 7y ago
    The “majority of US residents” have private healthcare and don’t have student loans. That majority will pay more taxes to make life better for the minority of people who don’t have those things. I’m in favor of universal healthcare, but billing it as something that will help the majority is disingenuous. This is the most likely outcome. Costs stay the same or go down a little bit, but nowhere near what it would take to make costs competitive, even as a percentage of GDP, with Europe. That means taxes will have to go up, and by a lot because our public sector is so inefficient compared to Europe. (It costs is 7 times more to build a mile of subway than France, why on earth would you expect building a hospital to be any different?) These taxes will have to be paid by the middle class—because that’s how it’s done in Europe. It’ll be totally unfeasible to have much higher capital gains or corporate taxes than France. (Which has low business taxes and pays for universal healthcare through regressive taxes.) At the end of the day, the middle class household making $80k/year will pay a lot more taxes, and their out-of-pocket healthcare spending won’t go down by much, because they had employer-paid healthcare to begin with. But the hourly workers and those folks will be able to see doctors! And that will be a good thing. But it will also be quite unpleasant for the majority of people who we’re doing okay under the current system.
rayiner 7y ago
How is this “corruption?” This is a State hospital invoking a State law to collect debt owed to a State entity. Virginia is super aggressive with collections in general.
- munk-a 7y ago
  The corruption is in both people being forced into unreasonable costs for healthcare and the state failing to provide a good recourse for persons in debt this deep.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Policies you happen to disagree with are not “corruption.”
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - ASalazarMX 7y ago
      What do you call this then? Fraud? > The $164,000 billed to Waldron for intestinal surgery was more than twice what a commercial insurer would have paid for her care [..]. Charges on her bill included $2,000 for a $20 feeding tube.
      - CptFribble 7y ago
        If that price was arrived at by an official process and properly documented, then that's the system working as intended. The questions is, intended by whom?
        geggam 7y ago
        So with careful planning and proper documentation you can rob a bank ? Intent is a serious factor in crime.
saluki 7y ago
The US healthcare system is simply terrifying financially.
Clubber 7y ago
To add insult to injury, your taxes pay for the legal system (Judge, Courts, etc) these companies are using to sue you and to extend your debt statute of limitations. Corruption is aggravating. Having to pay a massive chunk of my income for it is just nauseating.
Gibbon1 7y ago
You answered your own question, the system is designed to enable corruption and screw people. It's a feature not a bug.
ars 7y ago
> Why can't we just adopt the European model or Canadian model. Simple. There's not enough money. To do that there are a lot of people who have to get pay reductions or lose jobs. But if you did that people would be anyway able to afford healthcare, so you kind of solved the wrong problem. Good luck solving the pay problem, can you imagine a politician running on a platform of job losses?
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  > There's not enough money. Sure there is. US governments' expenditure per capita on healthcare is more than governments' expenditure p.c. everywhere else. Wherever that money is going, it's not going to better outcomes, or being evenly distributed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...
  - ars 7y ago
    Yes, that's exactly what I said. You read it exactly backwards. There's not enough money, for government, to pay all the Dr.'s etc, at current rates. Healthcare workers of all sorts will need to either have a pay reduction or be laid off, in order to bring spending in-line with how much other countries spend.
    - Scoundreller 7y ago
      Oh. It was confusing when you said there wasn’t enough money and then talked about job losses: I thought you were suggesting higher taxes, making some businesses uneconomical, or cutting spending in general to raise money to get enough money. But ya, a lot of the health care industry in the US isn’t economical, and skims off the rest of the economy. Issues that competitor countries mitigate better. Fix that and you improve America’s competitiveness. It should be an easier sell than it is.
    - MandieD 7y ago
      Being a doctor in Germany pays well enough to be a desirable profession, so the required high school exit exam (Abitur) cutoffs for medical school spots are pretty tight, but it's not as insanely well-paying as being a doctor in the US can be. On the other hand, they start their internships and residencies with no student debt, as opposed to their American colleagues. They also go straight into their medical studies instead of doing an unrelated bachelor's degree first.
conanbatt 7y ago
If you made a public health system with this, it will charge more but through taxes instead, and you won't even have a chance to fight it.

pkaye 7y ago

> The hospital ranked No. 1 in Virginia by U.S. News & World Report is taxpayer supported and state-funded, not a company with profit motives and shareholder demands. Its taxpayer funded however.

darpa_escapee 7y ago
Total health expenditures have skyrocketed[1] along with the amount of hospital administrators[2] over the last few decades. This particular hospital is unlikely to have escaped the trend. [1] https://img.datawrapper.de/z8VeH/full.png https://img.datawrapper.de/z8VeH/full.png [2] https://gomerblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Doctors-and-administrators-e1557515296900.jpg https://gomerblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Doctors-and...
- pkaye 7y ago
  I'd be interested in comparing the increase in US health expenditures compare to a couple countries in the EU.
  - dv_dt 7y ago
    Event if the relative increases were the same, the absolute costs are on a different basis. US health expenditures per capita is double the average EU nation. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#item-relative-size-wealth-u-s-spends-disproportionate-amount-health https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...
    - pkaye 7y ago
      I understand the US is spending more. I'm wondering what is the baseline to compare US spending growth rate.
      - dv_dt 7y ago
        It's in those charts, ah maybe 4-5 down..
  - tzs 7y ago
    From 2000 to 2018, US per capita went from 4557 to 10586, so 2.3x as much. (All costs in this comment in US dollars per capita). Germany went from 2889 to 5986, 2.1x as much. France went from 2686 to 4965, 1.8x as much. Canada (yes, I know Canada is not EU...I'm tossing them in as a bonus) went from 2451 to 4974, 2.0x as much. Italy went from 2029 to 3428, 1.7x as much. Japan (another bonus) went from 1851 to 4766, 2.6x as much. UK, 1561 to 4070, 2.6x as much. Data here: https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm Uncheck the "latest data available" box to activate the range sliders and get a graph of costs over time. Two things stand out in the graphs: 1. US is more expensive over the whole range of the data (1970 to 2018). 2. They are all going up, mostly at roughly comparable rates. I just looked at the G7 countries above, but the same holds for most OECD countries. It looks like the US has averaged going up a little more than many of the rest, but it looks like nearly everybody has got a problem in this area.
- RaceWon 7y ago
  > along with the amount of hospital administrators You have no idea. I work a small community hospital and we have 9 VP's and 44 Directors. One department has 9 employees and 2 Directors.

save_ferris 7y ago

It’s getting harder and harder to envision what retirement will look like for millennials, between this and student loans. An incredible number of boomers are going bankrupt due to medical expenses and have nothing for retirement. I like to think we’ll have together in 30 years, but if the last 30 years is any indication, we’re in big trouble.

dv_dt 7y ago
It's hard to envision any good outcome with the current system. But if we pass a universal healthcare like Medicare for all, and forgive student loans, and a number of other measures like girding against climate change, then for the first time in long time I could a positive trend for the majority US residents.
- jorblumesea 7y ago
  Sure, but that would require progressive policies implemented by electing progressive politicians. US voters seem to screw themselves over time and time again by voting for the status quo or in some cases regressive politicians. So long as people keep voting for those who promise no change, why would anyone expect anything to improve?
- rayiner 7y ago
  The “majority of US residents” have private healthcare and don’t have student loans. That majority will pay more taxes to make life better for the minority of people who don’t have those things. I’m in favor of universal healthcare, but billing it as something that will help the majority is disingenuous. This is the most likely outcome. Costs stay the same or go down a little bit, but nowhere near what it would take to make costs competitive, even as a percentage of GDP, with Europe. That means taxes will have to go up, and by a lot because our public sector is so inefficient compared to Europe. (It costs is 7 times more to build a mile of subway than France, why on earth would you expect building a hospital to be any different?) These taxes will have to be paid by the middle class—because that’s how it’s done in Europe. It’ll be totally unfeasible to have much higher capital gains or corporate taxes than France. (Which has low business taxes and pays for universal healthcare through regressive taxes.) At the end of the day, the middle class household making $80k/year will pay a lot more taxes, and their out-of-pocket healthcare spending won’t go down by much, because they had employer-paid healthcare to begin with. But the hourly workers and those folks will be able to see doctors! And that will be a good thing. But it will also be quite unpleasant for the majority of people who we’re doing okay under the current system.

rayiner 7y ago

How is this “corruption?” This is a State hospital invoking a State law to collect debt owed to a State entity. Virginia is super aggressive with collections in general.

munk-a 7y ago
The corruption is in both people being forced into unreasonable costs for healthcare and the state failing to provide a good recourse for persons in debt this deep.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Policies you happen to disagree with are not “corruption.”
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - ASalazarMX 7y ago
    What do you call this then? Fraud? > The $164,000 billed to Waldron for intestinal surgery was more than twice what a commercial insurer would have paid for her care [..]. Charges on her bill included $2,000 for a $20 feeding tube.
    - CptFribble 7y ago
      If that price was arrived at by an official process and properly documented, then that's the system working as intended. The questions is, intended by whom?
      - geggam 7y ago
        So with careful planning and proper documentation you can rob a bank ? Intent is a serious factor in crime.

saluki 7y ago

The US healthcare system is simply terrifying financially.

Clubber 7y ago

To add insult to injury, your taxes pay for the legal system (Judge, Courts, etc) these companies are using to sue you and to extend your debt statute of limitations. Corruption is aggravating. Having to pay a massive chunk of my income for it is just nauseating.

Gibbon1 7y ago

You answered your own question, the system is designed to enable corruption and screw people. It's a feature not a bug.

ars 7y ago

> Why can't we just adopt the European model or Canadian model. Simple. There's not enough money. To do that there are a lot of people who have to get pay reductions or lose jobs. But if you did that people would be anyway able to afford healthcare, so you kind of solved the wrong problem. Good luck solving the pay problem, can you imagine a politician running on a platform of job losses?

Scoundreller 7y ago
> There's not enough money. Sure there is. US governments' expenditure per capita on healthcare is more than governments' expenditure p.c. everywhere else. Wherever that money is going, it's not going to better outcomes, or being evenly distributed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...
- ars 7y ago
  Yes, that's exactly what I said. You read it exactly backwards. There's not enough money, for government, to pay all the Dr.'s etc, at current rates. Healthcare workers of all sorts will need to either have a pay reduction or be laid off, in order to bring spending in-line with how much other countries spend.
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
    Oh. It was confusing when you said there wasn’t enough money and then talked about job losses: I thought you were suggesting higher taxes, making some businesses uneconomical, or cutting spending in general to raise money to get enough money. But ya, a lot of the health care industry in the US isn’t economical, and skims off the rest of the economy. Issues that competitor countries mitigate better. Fix that and you improve America’s competitiveness. It should be an easier sell than it is.
  - MandieD 7y ago
    Being a doctor in Germany pays well enough to be a desirable profession, so the required high school exit exam (Abitur) cutoffs for medical school spots are pretty tight, but it's not as insanely well-paying as being a doctor in the US can be. On the other hand, they start their internships and residencies with no student debt, as opposed to their American colleagues. They also go straight into their medical studies instead of doing an unrelated bachelor's degree first.

conanbatt 7y ago

If you made a public health system with this, it will charge more but through taxes instead, and you won't even have a chance to fight it.