#2 This year the American people will spend approximately 2.8 trillion dollars on health care, and it is being projected that Americans will spend 4.5 trillion dollars on health care in 2019.
#7 Approximately 60 percent of all personal bankruptcies in the United States are related to medical bills.
#19 Close to 10 percent of all U.S. employers plan to drop health coverage completely when the major provisions of Obamacare go into effect in 2014.
LOL. Maybe Donna Brazille would like to add some insight here.
All hail ObamaCare, the cornerstone of the great Obama presidency! The legislation the corrupt MSM loved, supported, and desperately wanted to help Obama win.
I’m watching what doctors are doing to a number of people I know who are in their 70’s, and I wonder if there isn’t some sort of scam going on to take lots of money and then let them die.
What supports all this nonsense? The ability of the Gov’t to print money and have a central bank (the Federal Reserve) with their primary dealer constituents buy this debt
End the FED and you end 1000 evils that are enabled by it.
I’m distrustful of Time magazine in general, but some of the examples of overcharging they gave were pretty shocking. For some reason, I also got the impression that non-profit hospitals are a scam. Maybe some of the medical experts could weigh in.
Back in the 90s, a friend was in a bad accident. He left the hospital after three months, broke and jobless. He then received in the mail his hospital bill: $287,000, or, $427,092 in 2012 dollars.
Everything you are all posting indicates that the Progressives will eventually get their wish. A 51% majority for single payer.
Why is it so much longer? Hint: It is NOT from people quitting smoking, dieting and exercising, and not doing stupid dangerous things. It is because of a huge, unrelenting, almost all-American, century long, Space-age type acceleration in our science and technology related to medicine. It costs an incredible amount.
But the other reason it costs an incredible amount is that every single penny practically, spent on health care, has to be run through greedy insurance companies and all of their cubicled workers. Millions and millions of people are supported by this expense, though, it adds NOTHING to the medical products or services bought. Bring back a real market, and really informed consumers, and freedom to purchase whatever, wherever, and prices will tumble.
Then, health insurance will become what it used to be in a saner time: A means of amortizing a rare and unexpected expense for an individual.
Also, a reason it is so expensive to get medical care is because people have INFANTILE EXPECTATIONS about the chances of survival of very sick and very old people. Instead of just saying goodbye, as it was done in the old days, they let the doctors do all kinds of crazy aggressive things like liver transplantations, ECMO, chemotherapy, ridiculous operations on metastatic disease, etc. Very high tech, but usually not worth it.
Next, people sue doctors and hospitals for supposed errors if they believe not everything possible was done. Well, 'everything possible' is incredibly expensive, when it comes to medicine.
Last but not least, medical care is expensive is because only a fraction of people buy health insurance. Others are indigent, and just show up at the hospital injured or sick and then stiff the hospital for the bill. Millions and millions of people fit into this category. You can lump Medicare people in with them, because they pay about 5 cents for every dollar worth of medical care they consume.
So here is the bear through the barleycorn: Where does the hospital make up the difference so as to pay for all the freeloaders and medicare recipients?
They charge the paying (saps) customers, who had the integrity to obtain health insurance, many, many times more than their real bill, and they shunt the money over to pay for the bills of the deadbeats.
It's actually a great deal for the poor and irresponsible.
Bad deal though, for people who tend to pay their bills.
The politicians and insurance and health care and medicolegal lobbyists and suits of all kinds concocted the system.
Get back to the old days of doctor, patient, cash on the barrel, and you will have responsible, economical care again.
we need more government regulation //sarc
The Government must force Doctors to comply by threatening their license to practice, eventually.
This is a mess that will never work in the USA. Period.
For those of us who can't wait in line behind fifty bums waiting to scam the system
for pain killers, we'll have home visits and those Doctors who do house calls will
be able to survive. In order to pay for it all, the Gov must continue with Death Panels and
lower payments to health care providers and create and never win situation.
It's in the bill.
Everyone wants the very best care possible. In an advanced technological culture, that is VERY expensive. If it can be done, and someone can pay for it, everyone will want it - and insist on getting it for “free”.
Surgeries (and gory details) aside, I had a $55,000 hospital stay once. Three weeks. That works out to about $100/hr. In an age where sweeping floors or flipping burgers gets you over $7/hr, and a robust salary is $50/hr, is $100/hr for teams of trained medical staff equipped with advanced technology hovering over you 24/7 really so bad?
Another time a doctor was paid $8000 for his work on me. I’d say that’s quite fair, considering he was repairing my heart.
Sure there are absurd expenses charged. Go after them. Be aware that demanding premium services with technically advanced equipment and difficult chemistries is very, very expensive.
Excellent article —