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Why are the prices so insane? Where do the money go? I'm from Eastern Europe so of course the prices would be different, but by an order of a magnitude at the m
by rplnt 6y ago
Why are the prices so insane? Where do the money go? I'm from Eastern Europe so of course the prices would be different, but by an order of a magnitude at the minimum seems strange.
- dnautics 6y ago- paying for services for people who don't have/can't afford insurance. - medical malpractice insurance -> legal system - big pharma/med devices industry
- spaetzleesser 6y agoYou should add - doctors are paid higher in the US than in another countries - billing staff overhead because of the insane insurance system - highly paid hospital administration - lots of middlemen that stay invisible because there is no price transparency - shiny new buildings that are built by friends of the hospital administration
- excannuck 6y ago"billing staff overhead because of the insane insurance system" While true, I would generalize to "insane bureaucratic system" unless you want to include public "insurance" into the mix. Medicaid and Medicare aren't simple!
- ArtDev 6y agoLook up the salary of your local hospital president. In my medium town of (Pop 200K) they pay him $980k per year. That is an absurd salary for a relatively small hospital!
- therealdrag0 6y agoHow do I look that up?
- huitzitziltzin 6y agoAFAIK, certain non-profits are required to report the salaries of their ten highest paid employees. Doesn't mean it will be easy to find, but you might be able to find it that way. But this is not information the hospital would share w/ you w/ great enthusiasm, obviously.
- zoomablemind 6y ago... Add also the medical equipment prices inflated by layers of distributors.
- dominotw 6y agoBig pharma? Big pharma has actually reduced the hospitalization costs over the past two decades. Edit: can someone explain downvotes?. How is big pharma increasing hospital costs? please take a look at this, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2669633/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2669633/ "The major empirical finding from this research is that medication use by Medicare beneficiaries is significantly negatively associated with hospital spending. Moreover, the cross-effect is quite large: each additional prescription drug fill reduces hospital costs by slightly more than $100 or about 5 percent measured at the mean level of Medicare payments in 2000 for inpatient hospital services for study subjects. "
- excannuck 6y agoFor every COVID vaccine, how many BS "re-patented" medications == harmless vitamin + actual_medicine? Or medications that don't really work (p-hacking) but are prescribed anyway?) Or manufacturers that buy out all US competitors to have a monopoly of a particular medicine?
- LatteLazy 6y agoPlus - Gold plating everything to avoid getting sued. - Inflated medical school costs - the price of a huge bureaucracy for billing people, chasing them, disputing it, agreeing rates with insurers, renegotiating rates with insurers, applying the right discounts, billing a dozen different state and federal programs for various bits, those being disputed, managing all that etc.
- annoyingnoob 6y ago-Disposable everything, priced at a premium
- dominotw 6y agoI moved to usa from a poor country to work at a hospital. I was shocked by how awesome, clean and luxurious everything looked. Top end fancy hotel in my country would look like a slum dwelling compared to a hospital in USA.
- ArtDev 6y agoGoing from the USA to a hospital in Thailand is a similar experience. Everything is so clean!
- fireeyed 6y agoDon’t forget AMA antitrust violations but curbing the number of doctors that could get into the system.
- huitzitziltzin 6y agoUnderrated answer, but it isn't an anti-trust violation when they have permission to accredit med schools! To be clear: I totally agree w/ you that the AMA is a cartel.
- huitzitziltzin 6y agoEveryone hates pharma (not entirely without reason!) but all drug spending is about 10% (slightly less) of US health care spending. If you spent $0 on drugs next year, we would not save that much money. If you want to cut spending, you need to cut spending on doctors and hospitals. If you want sources for these numbers, here is the National Health Expenditure summary from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Studies: https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/NHE-Fact-Sheet https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Sta...
- timonoko 6y agoIt is a sliding scale. American prizes are 3 times more than private clinic in Helsinki, and again those are 3 times higher than in Lithuania. For example ultrasonic diagnosis of your frozen shoulder is 600 Euros in USA, 200 Euros in Finland and 80 Euros in Vilnius. This issue is relevant, because European healthcare wont fix your shoulder, because it is a "cosmetic problem" and will disappear on its own in a year or two.
- timonoko 6y agoWhy this was downvoted? It would be nice get even some clue why this is happening so often on totally trite statement of facts.
- eldavido 6y agoIt's simple: waste. Everywhere. There is no incentive for doctors to be efficient so they aren't. They order too many supplies, do too many procedures quickly (when doing them slowly would be fine, and cheaper, etc). Price discipline is like gravity. It affects everything. In most American businesses subject to market forces, there is an enormous push to optimize every single little bit of the business to control costs. This force simply doesn't exist in healthcare.
- hhjinks 6y agoMarket forces aren't exactly prevalent in nationalized healthcare systems like the ones seen in Scandinavia either, and they keep costs way down compared to the US.
- swebs 6y ago>Why are the prices so insane? Because up until a few weeks ago, people weren't allowed to see what hospitals charged until AFTER getting their bill. It was a ridiculous system, and I'm glad Trump got rid of it.