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Oh please, cherry pick all you want. Healthcare is expensive in the US because of government, not just the industry. From certificate of need rules to conflicti

Oh please, cherry pick all you want. Healthcare is expensive in the US because of government, not just the industry. From certificate of need rules to conflicting regulation at nearly all levels and unreasonable coverage requirements that do not take the patient into account. throw in the simple fact the US Congress cannot even be shamed into fixing the Veteran Affairs health system nor the Bureau of Indian Services and people dare suggest we let take more control? fixing US health care will require a lot of work but the first step in fixing it is realizing all the bad players involved and that simply comparing to other systems isn't helping anyone.

sharkmerry 7y ago
This seems like whataboutism. is it just veteran care thats broken? Is active duty the same issue? We spend $843 per capita on just Administrative expenses in the US on healthcare. Its like 7-10% of Healthcare expenses. Do we really dare let this waste continue using private companies?
- dx87 7y ago
  Active duty care is bad as well. A running joke in the military is that "motrin and water" is a miracle cure because it's the only thing you'll get prescribed without a ton of doctor visits. I personally know of two people that were diagnosed with cancer while they were active duty, and both were lucky to survive. One told the doctor he was having severe pain near his abdomen, and instead of doing any sort of examination, they just put him on a 6 month waiting list for hernia surgery. Turns out he had testicular cancer and after the 6 month wait, it had advanced pretty far and he immediately needed to start chemo. They told him he only had a 10% chance of living because the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes during the wait. Another friend kept complaining about headaches and they kept sending him away with motrin, and after a few months they finally did a full exam and they found out he had a brain tumor.
  - hurricanetc 7y ago
    Active duty care varies wildly from post to post. My wife and I experienced spectacular care but I have heard dozens and dozens of horror stories from people who were stationed elsewhere. What is really amazing is that active duty family care is basically magic. USFHP is virtually free and you can go to virtually any private doctor, practice, or hospital you want. It's the impossible dream of what government sponsored health care could be.
anongraddebt 7y ago
The fact that other countries have effective health care systems run by the government suggests that the conclusion we should draw from the VA fiasco is that either the U.S. government is particularly incompetent or the incompetence is local and limited to a specific department(s). I'm inclined to believe the latter. That being the case, a further conclusion I would end up drawing is that both largely private and largely public health care systems work well, but that the U.S. suffers from running a health care system that takes no opinion as to which form it should take.
- deburo 7y ago
  Our "effective health care systems" might not be so effective in the U.S. Some of your states have big immigration problems.
- ars 7y ago
  It's neither of those two. The actual problem is the huge number of people employed by the industry. The US government is incapable of fixing anything because it would require firing huge numbers of people. That's obviously a non-starter for any politician. This situation can only be fixed by giving power to an entity that doesn't care about firing people, that only cares about the bottom line. And by the time people realize what's happening it'll be too late to change it. Basically private insurance companies that are not monopolies. There was a plan I remember from years ago about allowing people to buy health insurance from any state. In my opinion that's the best option. It would also be necessary to get rid of employer based insurance because employees don't get to pick. I have zero expectation of this ever happening.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  Seems obviously a problem of size. Can you point to a working healthcare system in any other country that has a population anywhere close to the US? Comparing us to countries that are hardly as populous as one US state is not a fair comparison. As anyone in the tech industry should know, there are a lot of unforeseen issues that popup when scaling something. It's rarely as easy as adding more CPUs or more people for that matter.
BearOso 7y ago
Health care in the US is expensive because the bad players are the insurance industry. It’s just a huge middleman that doesn’t need to exist, and yet it consistently makes record profits. You’ll run into hurdles when you try to bypass this layer because big insurance execs won’t be happy when they don’t get their cut. Then there’s all the people working for them that will be unemployed. But we just need to bite the bullet and remove the industry completely. When peoples’ health is at risk, there can’t be a notion of profit involved to get in the way of availability of treatment.

sharkmerry 7y ago

This seems like whataboutism. is it just veteran care thats broken? Is active duty the same issue? We spend $843 per capita on just Administrative expenses in the US on healthcare. Its like 7-10% of Healthcare expenses. Do we really dare let this waste continue using private companies?

dx87 7y ago
Active duty care is bad as well. A running joke in the military is that "motrin and water" is a miracle cure because it's the only thing you'll get prescribed without a ton of doctor visits. I personally know of two people that were diagnosed with cancer while they were active duty, and both were lucky to survive. One told the doctor he was having severe pain near his abdomen, and instead of doing any sort of examination, they just put him on a 6 month waiting list for hernia surgery. Turns out he had testicular cancer and after the 6 month wait, it had advanced pretty far and he immediately needed to start chemo. They told him he only had a 10% chance of living because the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes during the wait. Another friend kept complaining about headaches and they kept sending him away with motrin, and after a few months they finally did a full exam and they found out he had a brain tumor.
- hurricanetc 7y ago
  Active duty care varies wildly from post to post. My wife and I experienced spectacular care but I have heard dozens and dozens of horror stories from people who were stationed elsewhere. What is really amazing is that active duty family care is basically magic. USFHP is virtually free and you can go to virtually any private doctor, practice, or hospital you want. It's the impossible dream of what government sponsored health care could be.

anongraddebt 7y ago

The fact that other countries have effective health care systems run by the government suggests that the conclusion we should draw from the VA fiasco is that either the U.S. government is particularly incompetent or the incompetence is local and limited to a specific department(s). I'm inclined to believe the latter. That being the case, a further conclusion I would end up drawing is that both largely private and largely public health care systems work well, but that the U.S. suffers from running a health care system that takes no opinion as to which form it should take.

deburo 7y ago
Our "effective health care systems" might not be so effective in the U.S. Some of your states have big immigration problems.
ars 7y ago
It's neither of those two. The actual problem is the huge number of people employed by the industry. The US government is incapable of fixing anything because it would require firing huge numbers of people. That's obviously a non-starter for any politician. This situation can only be fixed by giving power to an entity that doesn't care about firing people, that only cares about the bottom line. And by the time people realize what's happening it'll be too late to change it. Basically private insurance companies that are not monopolies. There was a plan I remember from years ago about allowing people to buy health insurance from any state. In my opinion that's the best option. It would also be necessary to get rid of employer based insurance because employees don't get to pick. I have zero expectation of this ever happening.
jjeaff 7y ago
Seems obviously a problem of size. Can you point to a working healthcare system in any other country that has a population anywhere close to the US? Comparing us to countries that are hardly as populous as one US state is not a fair comparison. As anyone in the tech industry should know, there are a lot of unforeseen issues that popup when scaling something. It's rarely as easy as adding more CPUs or more people for that matter.

BearOso 7y ago

Health care in the US is expensive because the bad players are the insurance industry. It’s just a huge middleman that doesn’t need to exist, and yet it consistently makes record profits. You’ll run into hurdles when you try to bypass this layer because big insurance execs won’t be happy when they don’t get their cut. Then there’s all the people working for them that will be unemployed. But we just need to bite the bullet and remove the industry completely. When peoples’ health is at risk, there can’t be a notion of profit involved to get in the way of availability of treatment.