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Costliest 1 percent of patients account for 21 percent of U.S. health spending
Minnpost ^

Posted on 10/19/2013 10:37:13 AM PDT by Java4Jay

One percent consumed 21 percent of the nearly $1.3 trillion Americans spent on health care. Five percent of patients accounted for 50 percent of all health-care expenditures. By contrast, the bottom 50 percent of patients accounted for just 2.8 percent of spending.

(Excerpt) Read more at minnpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: healthcare; obamacare; socializedmedicine
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To: Java4Jay

Criminals account for a lot of healthcare spending too.


21 posted on 10/19/2013 10:58:10 AM PDT by Mark17 (Chicago Blackhawks: Stanley Cup champions 2010, 2013. Vietnam Veteran, 70-71)
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To: Java4Jay
We all got set up. Day after day...every other commercial was a drug commercial. 20% of school kids have ADHD and the rest have autism....

My friends grandson went to an autism rehab camp this summer. She finally realized after watching the rehab process...."What a lot of cr**".

22 posted on 10/19/2013 11:00:42 AM PDT by Sacajaweau
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To: txrefugee

I think I agree with you. The 91 year old woman down the street has had both of her knees replaced in the last year. Each required a week in the hospital and several weeks in rehab.

On the other hand I also know a 60 year old woman, who is at least 200 lbs overweight, that has had both of her knees replaced, also in the last year. No doctor required she lose weight before these surgeries, What do you think is going to happen to the new knees. The taxpayers also paid for her new knees because she’s on disability because she’s obese.

The problem I see is, how can we deny the older woman new knees when she has at least taken care of herself over the years, while replacing the knees of the younger woman who has not taken care of herself.


23 posted on 10/19/2013 11:01:03 AM PDT by beandog (All Aboard the Choo Choo Train to Crazy Town)
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To: First_Salute; Java4Jay
Costliest 1 percent of patients account
for 21 percent of U.S. health spending
Lawyers account for another 21 percent.
Hence; the 0'BlahBlah's DEATHCare is implemented...
(Lawyers accounting) If not more

24 posted on 10/19/2013 11:04:19 AM PDT by skinkinthegrass (who'll take tomorrow,$pend it all today;who can take your income & tax it all away..0'Blowfly can :-)
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To: puppypusher

No, it is actually the very elderly that are willing to spend any amount of the public’s $$$ to stave off the inevitable for another few months.

It is spent on things like dialysis on nursing home patients, including expensive ambulance transport to/from three times a week.

It is spent by MD’s prescribing the latest drug, when a 50 year old cheap generic would do as well or better....

AND it is spent by the indigent seeking expensive ER care for bullsqueeze like colds and minor aches and pains.

I see it every day. These issues could easily be fixed - and it doesn’t take a top-down takeover of people’s lives, like obamacare, to fix them.


25 posted on 10/19/2013 11:10:01 AM PDT by clee1 (We use 43 muscles to frown, 17 to smile, and 2 to pull a trigger. I'm lazy and I'm tired of smiling.)
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To: Java4Jay

If its not taxpayer money, then I don’t care what they spend


26 posted on 10/19/2013 11:11:24 AM PDT by GeronL
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To: Java4Jay

If you don’t give an incentive for the 1% - 5% to save money, then they have no reason to do avoid what they are doing now; and it is an easy remedy! Problem is, it would be an antithesis to government run care. Try convincing people (outside of Free Republic) that you can do something without government taxing it’s people.


27 posted on 10/19/2013 11:13:22 AM PDT by celmak
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To: First_Salute

Thanks to zerOcare, those slackers not utilizing health care will have to pay.


28 posted on 10/19/2013 11:16:27 AM PDT by depressed in 06 (America conceived in liberty, dies in slavery.)
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To: clee1

AND it is spent by the indigent seeking expensive ER care for bullsqueeze like colds and minor aches and pains

I have a cousin who has a daughter who has a baby. They are all indigent or on welfare of some kind. Every week they post on FB one of them is at the ER for some reason. Sometimes they post they are all at the ER at the same time. Make it a threefer and save the gas.


29 posted on 10/19/2013 11:16:41 AM PDT by sheana
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To: txrefugee

“You can’t rely on the common sense of doctors because they don’t have any objections as long as the taxpayers are paying for it.”

I know an 85 year old with severe Alzheimer’s on Medicare who just had a knee replacement. THAT was sure money well spent.


30 posted on 10/19/2013 11:20:52 AM PDT by 43north (BHO: 50% black, 50% white, 100% RED)
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To: Java4Jay

31 posted on 10/19/2013 11:25:55 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Java4Jay

For people on limited incomes who may not have doctors, insurance, reliable transportation, and often don’t seek attention until it’s too late medical help right on the property can be a godsend. And save hundreds of dollars in pharmacy/emergency room/ambulance costs. Almost any exam or treatment that can be done in a real doctor’s office can be done in the rolling clinic. A trip to the emergency room for flu shots, checkups, prescription renewals, and other non-emergencies can be done for 100-200.00 vs. costing the public health care system about $1,000 a visit.


32 posted on 10/19/2013 11:26:08 AM PDT by erlayman
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To: Java4Jay

While one could easily assume that the poor and elderly take up the biggest chunk of medical care $$$ a study by England’s NIH concluded that it was well-off people who take good care of themselves who were the biggest problem. Their reasoning, which made perfect sense in the world of bureaucrats but met with understandibly scathing criticism when it was released to the public, was that the poor generally didn’t take care of themselves (maybe because they couldn’t afford to?) put off medical care until it was too late and basically just went off on their own and died. The better off, on the other hand, stayed fit, exercised, watched their diets and were quick to seek medical attention. Not only that they were brazen enough to demand expensive treatments that dragged on at much expense before dying. In the topsy-turvey world of medical bureaucrats the achievers were once again seen as the drain on the system.


33 posted on 10/19/2013 11:33:02 AM PDT by Oshkalaboomboom
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To: clee1

My grandfather suffered kidney failure. He was 80 at the time. Not diabetic, overweight or otherwise unhealthy. He got bronchitis one winter and the (new, since taken off the market) antibiotic his doctor prescribed shut down his kidneys. He was living at his own home by himself, independently, at that time.

Should he have just died of kidney failure?

Is 80 old enough?

Good thing you weren’t in charge of that decision.

He had 6m of dialysis, his kidneys restarted and he continued to live, independently for nearly a dozen more years.

Got another one for ya. My great aunt was in an auto accident, not her fault and she was a passenger (her grand daughter was taking her to the store and they were t-boned by a nice ‘immigrant’ with no insurance). Broke her hips, pelvis and femur. She was 84 at the time.

Would you have just given her the blue pill?

Good thing you weren’t making that decision. She had all of the above fixed and continued to live, independently, for another dozen years as well. She moved to an assisted care home when she was 96 (and paid for by her children btw) and lived another 3 years. She died just short of 100.

Both of those elderly people would have lost 10-15% of their lifetime. Neither used an appreciable amount of healthcare dollars in their last decade of their life. Unless you’re willing to forego their flu shots and annual physicals?

I’m not so sure I believe the government ‘medicare’ numbers about the elderly when I haven’t seen any numbers for those people who shouldn’t be here sucking up medical resources at all. Ie, illegals and the medical tourists who fly here to receive ‘public assistance care’ at the ER.

Remember, now that we are ALL on the government dole for healthcare essentially it might be YOUR healthcare they deny.


34 posted on 10/19/2013 11:41:33 AM PDT by Black Agnes
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To: Java4Jay

Ummmm, this is pre-Obamacare and has nothing to do with Obamacare.

Obamacare sucks, but our medical system has been broken for quite some time.


35 posted on 10/19/2013 11:41:42 AM PDT by sakic
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To: sheana

For the most part, medical personnel will continue with expensive medical procedures provided the money keeps coming in. It’s good for their business. To spend $500,000 to extend life for 6 months is debatable.


36 posted on 10/19/2013 11:43:25 AM PDT by Java4Jay (The evils of government are directly proportional to the tolerance of the people.)
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To: txrefugee

A very Kevorkian solution.


37 posted on 10/19/2013 11:43:32 AM PDT by sakic
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To: clee1

BTW, when we took my grandfather to his dialysis appointments he was easily the oldest and one of the only whites there. Most of the patients were middle aged grossly overweight black people. The rest were similar aged, grossly overweight Mexican/Central Americans.


38 posted on 10/19/2013 11:44:35 AM PDT by Black Agnes
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To: Black Agnes
My husband's uncle had a similar story. He was in the intensive care unit for more than a month with an upper respiratory infection. He was in his 80’s at that the time but then lived a healthy life after that until the age of 96. He went to Mass every morning and served as the early morning altar assistant to the priest. At his funeral the church was filled with his many friends and family.
39 posted on 10/19/2013 11:47:06 AM PDT by wintertime
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To: Java4Jay

yep...and a lot of it to illegals!


40 posted on 10/19/2013 11:48:50 AM PDT by lonestar (It takes a village of idiots to elect a village idiot.)
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