Posted on 08/08/2025 7:05:00 AM PDT by Red Badger
Agree spouse and I have had Medicare and pay for supplements every month for years. People at church ask me “Why are you paying for insurance every month? We have Advantage for free.”
I admit I have asked myself that question several times but spouse says you get what pay for.
Not everything we can do is something we should do but who decides?
We are not the only country that can treat lukemia or or other such things now we are only the most expensive place on the planet to get such care. That is the problem. We seem to have too many hogs at the trough and too much greed. The system is free to charge what the traffic will bear and does.
My brother-in-law, who is now deceased, was an Oncologist in a specialty group here in S.E. Michigan.
He was responsible for purchasing all the chemo therapy drugs he used in his practice. In his last couple of years, he had to drop out of the private practice and become a staff oncologist for the hospital group they worked out of.
The reason he had to drop out was because medicare and medicaid, which many of his patients were insured with, would not reimburse him for the total costs to him for the therapy drugs he had to administer.
Ironically enough, the same drugs could have been purchased thru a Canadian distributor at a fraction of the cost........
bttt
That's the job of hers and their attorneys......
We, the US taxpayer, have been Big Pharma’s bitch for waaaaay too long!...........
If you can identify anyone who can be fired without affecting the quality or timeliness of healthcare, then I am in favor of getting rid of them. But I am not sure how much of a dent you can make that way. Our standards are very high. The last few times I visited a hospital, the people were in private rooms. That seems to be the norm now. In a lot of places you are on a ward with a bunch of other people. There has to be a cost to that. In Canada, you can wait a very long time for some procedures. If someone needs something right now and they have no capacity, they send them to - guess where? The United States. We are literally the relief valve for their system. If we go their way, who is going to pick up our slack?
At least we are not yet in the same boat as the UK. People who have been waiting in line forever for some procedure are being pushed back even further to make room in front of them for illegal immigrants.
There were legions of people in the ward we were in and at any one time it looked like most of them were out in the halls talking. That does not mention the other legions of people in mandated medical records that seem to become property with ring fences around them, they sure are not shared.
I don’t think it would take long to identify redundancy but that is not the subject. The subject is excessive charges when the opportunity arises evidenced by huge apparent differences from one area to another.
Our medical system just costs too much on a global comparative scale.
I remember the days of wards and double rooms. They weren’t that bad when some good sense was made of parings. In unusual or very bad conditions single rooms were indicated and used. They were not standard though.
How many of these nations have health care that is much worse or less capable than ours? We don’t just spend more, we spend a LOT more.
United States| 12,555
Switzerland | 8,049
Germany| 8,011
Austria | 7,275
Netherlands | 6,729
Sweden | 6,438
Canada | 6,319
France | 6,630
Australia | 6,372
Japan | 5,251
In terms of life expectancy which seems to be a good measure of bang for the buck we don’t rank in the top 46 by life expectancy which does not vary by a whole lot but suggest some other measure if you do not like that one. Still, the point remains that the US spends a LOT more than other countries but does not appear to get a lot in return others don’t have for a lot less money.
https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/
We also spend more per student on education than all but three OECD nations. Just a quick review shows we don’t get much bang for the buck there either.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/238733/expenditure-on-education-by-country/
There are also 20 countries that outscore US in overall PISA scores.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/pisa-scores-by-country
Try reading this:
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=253727
Karl Denninger has been on a tear recently about how medical costs have gone from 5% of GDP up to 20%, and how that will BANKRUPT the country.
Incidentally, he has an IQ of 187 and very little tolerance for BS. Salty language at the site.
that kind of call from any health plan would not happen, all that information is HANDLED IN THE PRE APPROVEL PROCEESS, SOUND LIKE EITHER A SCAM OR AN OVERALY OFFICOUS NURS REVIEWER.. never in 30 yrs of working in all aspects of the medical claims world have i heard of this happening. I am calling BS on this doc. plus why would a dr take to tic tock..
as for not allowing her clinic to become in-network has to do with her credentialing and billing practices i would guess
NOPE all the major health insurance companies had lobbiets on capital hill flogging Ocare. they all wanted a slice of the pie, the company i worked at that time a medicare health plan had the ceo in DC to lobby.. why dont know.
Granted United is the worst of the worst but this is the kind of BS which will guarantee single payer.
Granted United is the worst of the worst but this is the kind of BS which will guarantee single payer.
All part of the plan, why do you think nobody read the ObamaCare bill before they voted on it? They didn’t care. It’s just a means to an end.
different regions in each state make pricing different, larger cities have higher bills small cities/rual areas have different rates. the feds do the same with medicare payments
thank you for that Owen.. the hate is just so misplaced..
No business could survive such a drain. Too bad for us it is not our only similar drain.
Thanks for the link.
How is it you “deserve” a good surgeon? If you don’t pay for good healthcare who do you believe should pay it for you?
Do you deserve a good surgeon or the best?
OFFICE STAFF HANDLE ALL PRE AUTHURATIONS, IF HER STAFF SCREWED UP THEN THE STAFF IN THE OFFICE SHOULD HAVE HANDLED IT, AND NOT CALL THE DR..
this smells bad for the dr and her staff.
There is certainly a problem with the “list prices” vs what insurance companies pay. Someone without insurance should not be charged $10,000 for something an insurance company has negotiated down to $100. In Trump’s first term, they tried to get hospitals to disclose their prices, which I believe the hospitals are simply ignoring.
There is also an issue with legal expenses. What is the malpractice situation in these other countries? And the issue of who pays for deadbeats. People get treated at some level even if they do not pay. And they usually use the emergency room as their PCP, which is the most costly way to go. Also, we have to consider the quality of the data we are working from. A lot of this comes from organizations whose goal is to have the gummit running the entire system top to bottom from Washington. I have trouble trusting what they have to say.
I just wish we could get reliable data that does not come with an agenda and just compares apples to apples.
As far as life expectancy is concerned, that will not get better until individual Americans learn to eat right, exercise a little, and generally stop abusing their bodies with drugs and alcohol and promiscuity and probably a dozen other things. You can bet a lot of that extra money is keeping us alive in spite of our bad habits.
I think the president could do a lot with hard nosed negotiating on drug prices. They should also do what they can to promote competition from the compounding pharmacies. I use compounded semaglutide for weight loss. It sets me back $30/week, which is well within my budget. But, as almost of us here know, President Trump has a lot of irons in the fire and I don’t think he needs more right at this moment.
Reforming education is a whole other ball of wax. For the time being, I am hoping that the rush away from expensive, burdensome and useless university degrees and toward skilled trades starts putting the pressure on that issue. And under no circumstances should student loans be forgiven. I graduated in 1979 with $9000 in student loans. That was 50% of my starting salary. I had to drive a Chevette for a few years, but I got those loans paid off. On time. Paying bills on time is one aspect of what they call these days “adulting”, and I think kids need a lot of practice. They can start by diligently paying their debts.
Well,that is about all I have to bloviate about tonight. Good night, everyone.
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