Gavin asks:
Why do you keep saying that the medical system doesn't work?
I'm not saying that healthcare isn't great. Nor am I saying that the "system" doesn't work for many. For many it works quite well.
What I am saying is that overall, the system is too costly and so, so flawed.
Yes, you can see a doctor for $30. That's what you pay. The insurance company then pays often 3 or 4 times that additionally, for a simple routine office visit. That's right...for a 1/2 hour checkup the doctor can receive close to $200 or more. Often for what? To listen to your vitals; ask you a few questions, schedule another appt and/or write out an Rx.
That's criminal!
What other line of work charges $400 an hour, or more, for its professional services? In what other services industry is it commonplace to schedule appts and then not be seen until 30 or 45 minutes after you are scheduled (or later)?
Our son had an emergency appendectomy (sp?) a few years back. We paid about $500 in co-pays, and the insurance company picked up the remainder...over $16,000. Now, for my son's life I would pay any amount, but get this...I asked the doctor before he did the operation "how many of these do you do?" and he said: "Dozens a week"...and that's not all he does. $16,000...3 days and two nights in the hospital, and with the exception of the anthestitist (seperate charge), the scrub nurse, and the doctor, ALL of the other expenses are what we call in business terms "sunk cost" (things that would be paid for anyway, as general cost of running the hospital). So, where did all that money go?
Don't get me wrong, I applaud the hard work doctors and other healthcare providers do, but c'mon...the ENTIRE system can be better.
Yes, it works, for me and many...but it's FAR too costly. We don't question it because we rarely see the bills, and we pay out little out of pocket bills of $25 here, $30 there.
I've heard studies that say the average, yearly, per-family costs of most socialized medical programs in countries like Canada are actually no more than the average American family pays in "co-pays" in a year. That's right...the whole cost of running the programs for a family, providing the same average level of care, costs about what we are already paying out of pocket.
Sure, for major medical bills, and emergency operations and such, we want better coverage, and the best care possible and we equate the best with what we have in America, and no one wants to change that.
We are losing doctors in this country...it's not as lucrative a profession as it once was. The MIDDLE is taking too big a piece of the pie. That MIDDLE is the insurance companies (health and malpractice) and it means we are paying too much, more and more, for dwindling choices.
TJR
