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People can think our system is awful and still not want the European one.
by dantheman 7y ago
People can think our system is awful and still not want the European one.
- Ididntdothis 7y agoThere is no single European one. There is a whole range of systems that are very different.
- Gibbon1 7y agoA lot of systems will work when the people involved are acting in good faith. And that is what's missing from the US system. US corporations and government have been captured by looters.
- Ididntdothis 7y agoThat’s probably the real problem.
- specialist 7y agoWhat system do you want?
- Consultant32452 7y agoI would start by making all drugs legal without a prescription except in the rare case of a systemic risk. Antibiotics and super-bugs are one example of systemic risk. Grandma's heart medication, or Suzie's asthma inhaler are not. And of course you should be able to purchase those drugs from countries we generally would trust to create safe products: Canada, UK, France, Spain, Germany, etc. Second, I would require that all medical products and services must have their prices acknowledged by the consumer before service is rendered. Obviously there would have to be some exceptions for extreme medical emergencies, but emergency care only makes up about 1% of healthcare costs, so that can slide. I would disband medical unions such as the AMA, which spent decades artificially limiting supply of medical workers to keep wages sky high. I would ban employer provided health insurance, decoupling healthcare from employment. I would attempt to reshape the health insurance industry to actually work like insurance instead of total coverage. If you get the sniffles, just pay the market rate to visit the NP at the CVS minute clinic, get your antibiotic or whatever, and be on your way. Insurance should not be involved in that, and should be reserved for major medical emergencies or serious conditions like cancer. I would have serious patent reform, moving pharmaceuticals to generics at a faster rate, and expedite FDA certification for generics. I would work to create a system of partner countries for healthcare certification. If your drug is approved in France, you get a greatly expedited process in the US and vice versa. If those things didn't dramatically bring down the price of healthcare to a reasonable rate, then I'd consider some socialization of risk.
- specialist 7y agoThat's a pretty good list. I'd like to understand why healthcare doesn't bill using time & materials plus markup. All current pricing seems little more than make believe. I also don't understand why different people are billed different prices. I get that different providers will likely (hopefully) have different billing rates. But isn't billing different prices for the exact same thing illegal?