4 ms·

I don't know how any American can accept the pile of trash that the US healthcare is. The only good thing is that in some cases you will get state of the art ca

by avgDev 5y ago

I don't know how any American can accept the pile of trash that the US healthcare is. The only good thing is that in some cases you will get state of the art care, this is "rare" and may not result in better outcomes. 1. The cost is insane. It doesn't matter how much money you have, if you stay long term in a hospital your bill will be insane and more than an average cost of a house. 2. Single ER visit? 10 different bills over the next few months. Apparently, there is a new law trying to tackle this but hospital can opt-out by having you sign paperwork. 3. If you have an illness and need to see many doctors and have many tests in a short period of time get ready for your insurance to fight you and deny claims. You will be calling them all the time. 4. There are now 3rd party businesses set up to "VERIFY" no other party is responsible for the care you received(meaning you did not have an accident). If you fail to respond to their letters, your claim will be denied. 5. MRI, X-rays, dental work, physician visits are SO MUCH more than other developed nations. It is a joke. I'm talking without insurance here, just going to a private clinic and paying out of pocket as these also exist in Poland even though it has socialized healthcare. 6. The insurance prices are out of control, and the insurance company don't give a shit. In fact, they welcome the high prices. Obamacare capped insurance companies profit margins at a percentage of money spent, this is the result. The more they pay out, the more they make. The cost falls on the policy holders. 7. Covid is really showing cracks in for-profit healthcare. I have friends who work in the field and are complaining about people coming in with positive covid tests because they are asymptomatic. If they don't want to come in they risk getting fired, and in some areas large hospital networks own many smaller clinics and being fired may result in not being able to find a job without relocating.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
Your average American doesn’t have the pull to effect change. The majority of Americans support government taking a greater role in healthcare (per Pew Research), but Congressional reps won’t vote for it, so you have to wait for people to age out for change. In the interim, everyone overpays and suffers.
rkk3 5y ago
> the pile of trash that the US healthcare is There are significant problems but whose Vaccine did you take for Covid-19? Pfizer (Us), Moderna (US), Johnson and Johnson (US)...
- avgDev 5y ago
  Do you think universal healthcare would affect pharmaceuticals? I think it would not be relevant to the vaccines as we would still spend money on R&D under the pandemic threat.
  - rkk3 5y ago
    > Do you think universal healthcare would affect pharmaceuticals? Yes, I would think a massive fundamental change in the healthcare system would have an effect on Pharma. But who knows what that would look like > I think it would not be relevant to the vaccines as we would still spend money on R&D under the pandemic threat. They would spend money, but it's not hard to envision a world where we didn't have multiple fully tested, safe & effective vaccines in less than a year.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    Rather it would be more relevant in the case of vaccines, becaase the reason we didn't have them was not because we didn't have the science, but because drug companies didn't see them as profitable. A better hybrid public/private system would be for the government to put out bounties for companies to run large studies on research that looks promising, to determine effectiveness and optimize formulations. In return for paying for the research, government would get the patents. Paying for drug development with a patent reward only encourages deceit and high prices. Dean Baker has explored this extensively, and is posting steadily about it recently: The basic idea of government-funded research should not be hard to grasp since the government already funds a large share of biomedical research. The National Institutes of Health gets over $40 billion a year in federal funding, with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency (BARDA) and other government agencies getting several billion more. This puts the government’s total spending in the $45 to $50 billion range, compared to a bit over $90 billion from the industry. So the idea that the government would fund research really should not be that strange. Most of the public funding does go to more basic research, but there are plenty of instances where the government has actually funded the development of new drugs and also done clinical testing. But under the current system, most of the later stage funding does come from the industry and is funded through patent monopoly pricing. Relying on open-source government-funded research for later-stage development and testing would be a major change. To my view, the best way for the government to support the development of new drugs is through long-term contracts (10-12 years), which would be awarded through competitive bids for research in specific areas, like cancer or heart disease. The plan would be that the contracts would be relatively large, with the idea that the winners would be comparable to prime contractors for the military. https://www.cepr.net/more-on-open-source-versus-patent-monopoly-financing-of-drug-development/ https://www.cepr.net/more-on-open-source-versus-patent-monop... ----- Getting Ready for the Next Pandemic: Can We Get Patent Monopolies on the Table?: https://cepr.net/getting-ready-for-the-next-pandemic-can-we-get-patent-monopolies-on-the-table/ https://cepr.net/getting-ready-for-the-next-pandemic-can-we-... Financing Drug Research: What are the Issues?: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1134983 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1134983
FowlSoft2013 5y ago
The problem from my point of view is conflating ongoing healthcare with catastrophic coverage. Outpatient care should absolutely be a free market (prescriptions, lab tests, specialist visits etc.). Catastrophic incidents/diagnoses should be a simple lump sum payout (Cancer, Hear Attack, Stroke, etc.). Alternative options I've seen being offered for ongoing healthcare is Direct Primary Care where essentially you pay a membership fee to have unlimited access to a primary care physician. I think the root of the problem is subsidization and the patch work of legislation that gets piled on year after year to "fix" the issue. The entire price function is completely out of wack and as long as the patient is stuck between the provider, insurance carrier, and government debating who has to pay, they will lose.

by avgDev 5y ago

toomuchtodo 5y ago

Your average American doesn’t have the pull to effect change. The majority of Americans support government taking a greater role in healthcare (per Pew Research), but Congressional reps won’t vote for it, so you have to wait for people to age out for change. In the interim, everyone overpays and suffers.

rkk3 5y ago

> the pile of trash that the US healthcare is There are significant problems but whose Vaccine did you take for Covid-19? Pfizer (Us), Moderna (US), Johnson and Johnson (US)...

avgDev 5y ago
Do you think universal healthcare would affect pharmaceuticals? I think it would not be relevant to the vaccines as we would still spend money on R&D under the pandemic threat.
- rkk3 5y ago
  > Do you think universal healthcare would affect pharmaceuticals? Yes, I would think a massive fundamental change in the healthcare system would have an effect on Pharma. But who knows what that would look like > I think it would not be relevant to the vaccines as we would still spend money on R&D under the pandemic threat. They would spend money, but it's not hard to envision a world where we didn't have multiple fully tested, safe & effective vaccines in less than a year.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  Rather it would be more relevant in the case of vaccines, becaase the reason we didn't have them was not because we didn't have the science, but because drug companies didn't see them as profitable. A better hybrid public/private system would be for the government to put out bounties for companies to run large studies on research that looks promising, to determine effectiveness and optimize formulations. In return for paying for the research, government would get the patents. Paying for drug development with a patent reward only encourages deceit and high prices. Dean Baker has explored this extensively, and is posting steadily about it recently: The basic idea of government-funded research should not be hard to grasp since the government already funds a large share of biomedical research. The National Institutes of Health gets over $40 billion a year in federal funding, with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency (BARDA) and other government agencies getting several billion more. This puts the government’s total spending in the $45 to $50 billion range, compared to a bit over $90 billion from the industry. So the idea that the government would fund research really should not be that strange. Most of the public funding does go to more basic research, but there are plenty of instances where the government has actually funded the development of new drugs and also done clinical testing. But under the current system, most of the later stage funding does come from the industry and is funded through patent monopoly pricing. Relying on open-source government-funded research for later-stage development and testing would be a major change. To my view, the best way for the government to support the development of new drugs is through long-term contracts (10-12 years), which would be awarded through competitive bids for research in specific areas, like cancer or heart disease. The plan would be that the contracts would be relatively large, with the idea that the winners would be comparable to prime contractors for the military. https://www.cepr.net/more-on-open-source-versus-patent-monopoly-financing-of-drug-development/ https://www.cepr.net/more-on-open-source-versus-patent-monop... ----- Getting Ready for the Next Pandemic: Can We Get Patent Monopolies on the Table?: https://cepr.net/getting-ready-for-the-next-pandemic-can-we-get-patent-monopolies-on-the-table/ https://cepr.net/getting-ready-for-the-next-pandemic-can-we-... Financing Drug Research: What are the Issues?: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1134983 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1134983

FowlSoft2013 5y ago

The problem from my point of view is conflating ongoing healthcare with catastrophic coverage. Outpatient care should absolutely be a free market (prescriptions, lab tests, specialist visits etc.). Catastrophic incidents/diagnoses should be a simple lump sum payout (Cancer, Hear Attack, Stroke, etc.). Alternative options I've seen being offered for ongoing healthcare is Direct Primary Care where essentially you pay a membership fee to have unlimited access to a primary care physician. I think the root of the problem is subsidization and the patch work of legislation that gets piled on year after year to "fix" the issue. The entire price function is completely out of wack and as long as the patient is stuck between the provider, insurance carrier, and government debating who has to pay, they will lose.