FoxNews - T.R. Ried just blew the American Health Care System Away

[AndyJackson]

You have no clue. The overhead is not what they "call" overhead, but the totality of administrative costs in the current health care system. THis includes the administrative costs of doctors and hospitals to do the paper work to document insurance claims, medical claims, etc. Doctors are not opting out of insurance and going to cash based transactions because these charges are 20%. They are going to these things because the total costs AND time mean that they have become paper pushers rather than practicing their professions.

Open your eyes, look around you and see the big picture.

The US economy is based largely on rent-seeking behavior- taking fees for controlling transactions while providing little additional value in return. Banks, hospitals, health care, car manufacturers, lawyers offices. It is everywhere. It is why our economy is finally sinking.

[CharlesWayneCT]

I didn’t realize you had changed the topic. I apologize.

When I was talking about 20%, it was in response to the specific claim that the insurance companies “charged” 20% overhead here, while they “charged” 4% overhead in france.

SO I was talking about the charged overhead, meaning what they CALL overhead, not the overhead of the system.

We know the system is burdened with costs that don’t provide health care. Government regulations require paperwork, Government rules require 2nd and 3rd opinions, define things in ways that generate work to prove you meet their regulatory requirements, require insurance to cover things that aren’t really medical issues and which drive up costs.

Lack of control of lawsuits requires extra tests, defensive medicine, excessive documentation, and large malpractice premiums which drive up overall costs.

And yes, our country as a whole has somewhat lost it’s ability to actually produce things, rather than being middle-men skimming money off the transaction without adding any value.

You know it’s bad when a company can get a better ROI for their stockholders if they fire all but a few employees, subcontract out the work, and just take the 10% management fee off the top of the contracts.