Health Care Costs: The Rip Off That Bankrupts America

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/03/27-9



The International Federation of Health Plans has depicted our ridiculous health care system in 21 graphs.

We don’t get more health care; we just pay more — much more.

And this entirely accounts for the scary long-term deficit projections. If we paid what every other advanced industrial country pays, we would project surpluses as far as the eye can see and be able to begin investing in areas vital to our future — like educating our kids.

It’s not “entitlements,” “greedy geezers,” the “takers,” public worker salaries and pensions, teachers’ unions, big government, out of control spending, or even cost of policing the world. A corrupted congress allows entrenched corporate lobbies to protect their right to rip us off. It isn’t more complicated than that. Every other explanation is hogwash. Take a look at the graphs. Remember them the next time Speaker Boehner babbles about out of control spending. Or the White House floats cutting Social Security with a chained CPI. Or the various Pete Peterson fronts rail about deficits.

21 graphs that show America’s health-care prices are ludicrous

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/26/21-graphs-that-show-americas-health-care-prices-are-ludicrous/?tid=d_pulse

[Southerner]

1. Let's see some graphs comparing wait times to get procedures done...

...or to even get in to see a doctor. It's a pretty regular occurence to have some Canadian relative of mine give up and pay-out-pocket to get something done south of the border.

[angstlessk]

2. If every person in the US COULD see a specialist or get elective surgery...we would wait longer too

The thing IS 25% of the country cannot see a specialist or get elective surgery because they don't have insurance..

Waiting 4 months for a hip replacement is NOTHING compared to never having it available to you at all

The uninsured in this country simply WAIT TO DIE...

[slipslidingaway]

3. ^^^^^^^^^^^ +1000 n/t

[NightWatcher]

4. Ding! You wins teh internets

I'm sick with no insurance, on disability, and waiting for Medicare to kick in for some routine care. Should my kidney or liver completely crap out, I don't believe I'd be in line to get another.

[magellan]

5. Your "Canadian relatives" are fortunate

They're obviously healthy and wealthy enough to take that option.



Meanwhile no one will see my husband for his suspected cancer because we can't afford insurance or to pay non-insured rates for the required biopsies without losing everything we own. His wait? 3 1/2 years so far.

[ljm2002]

8. Not that canard again...

...it's amazing how many new posters here just happen to have Canadian relatives, and not only that, they have enough of them so that they can actually discern patterns in the Canadian health care system vs. that in the USA.

Here's a clue: anecdotes are not the same thing as actual statistical studies. When it comes to required procedures, Canada does not have longer waiting periods than we have in the USA. For some elective procedures, they do have longer waiting periods. But then again, in Canada, you can get medical procedures done whether you are rich or poor; whereas in the USA, you better have the "do re me" or you can just get lost. And we don't count those who can't afford health care when we calculate waiting periods.

You should try informing yourself a little better, and not listening to your Canadian relatives, or the voices in your head, as the case may be.

[eridani]

13. That's the way they want it

Given the choice between higher taxes and wait times for treatments for non-lifethreatening conditions, they prefer the latter.

[Zoeisright]

17. Completely, absolutely wrong.

Critical needs are met immediately. Wait times are for ELECTIVE procedures. And they are not much different from wait times in the U.S. How do I know this? Because I WROTE A BOOK about medical ethics and studied this issue extensively.

[dkf]

6. And this is why the ACA missed the point.

There was no real attempt to get prices close to where everyone else has them.

[slipslidingaway]

7. Yes, at the very least Obama could have helped to advance a national HC system ...

without endorsing one, but he did the opposite from the very beginning.

[hughee99]

9. I heard it was going to lower prices, but I haven't even seen that yet,

let alone getting them in the line with the rest of the world.

[pediatricmedic]

11. They are predicting prices to go way up now.

[Hekate]

10. The good news is, my son's new anti-seizure med works better. The bad news is...

... it costs $600 a month. His wife just told me this; she says he actually teared up when he got that piece of news. He's employed and insured. Yeah, the new med has improved his life immensely, but Christ on a Trailer Hitch...

The good news is, so far hubby and I still have a group insurance plan. The bad news is, it isn't Blue Cross any more, and the sticker shock for our needed medications is phenomenal. Hubby has one that used to cost him pennies per pill, 6 pills a day. Now it costs $5 a pill, I think. I was just prescribed something to help with my chronic fatigue, because I am going on a trip overseas (really lucky, I know, not complaining) and I am afraid of jet lag ruining my trip. And the doc says that really I should just take this stuff every day and not just on vacation. I took the Rx to Costco and was informed that a 30 day supply was going to cost $300. I gasped and said, Thanks for telling me that up front, and I think I need to think about it. From the way the pharmacist's tech acted, I think they get this a lot. Shit, I am used to chronic fatigue and at least I am not one of those who is bedridden by it, so I think I am going to pass this up. Hubby cannot pass up his maintenance med that keeps him in remission from an unpleasant, chronic, (non-fatal, thank God) debilitating illness.

These people are EVIL. EVIL. EVIL.

[xchrom]

12. kick

[hay rick]

14. K&R

[SpearthrowerOwl]

15. This serves as a good argument piece

At least healthcare costs in America serve an unbelievably useful tool in argument to prove (well, really to further and easily prove, as there are numerous other things that could prove every one of these points..) a number of things:

1. People are not in control of their "democracy", rather, big money causes votes to be cast against the people's interests (ie. money/corporations run politics).
2. Over privatization is a bad idea.
3. Democrats are not actually liberal, rather, they're just a different faction of the corporate party (the party never pushed for single payer healthcare, which is such an obvious reform... makes me wonder how they could ever do anything else, the solutions don't get simpler than simply moving to a single payer healthcare system... come on this should be an EASY one...)
4. Welfare costs are not the drivers of unsustainable debt, rather it is handouts to corporations (in this case the healthcare insurance industry.)

It's astonishing that people completely ignore study after study from remarkably reputable sources (Harvard Medical School did a study a long time ago about the fact that switching to a Canadian style single payer healthcare system would save the US enough money to provide full coverage for every noninsured and underinsured citizen in the country and THEN have money left over just by cutting out the administrative costs of the health insurance industry: http://www.citizen.org/hrg1673)

[xchrom]

16. +1