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Why Are American Health Care Costs So High? (video)
YouTube ^ | August 20, 2013 | VlogBrothers - John Green

Posted on 09/24/2013 7:50:19 PM PDT by EveningStar

In which John discusses the complicated reasons why the United States spends so much more on health care than any other country in the world, and along the way reveals some surprising information, including that Americans spend more of their tax dollars on public health care than people in Canada, the UK, or Australia. Who's at fault? Insurance companies? Drug companies? Malpractice lawyers? Hospitals? Or is it more complicated than a simple blame game?

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


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: healthcare; johngreen; vlogbrothers

1 posted on 09/24/2013 7:50:19 PM PDT by EveningStar
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To: EveningStar

The government, because they are “helping” us.


2 posted on 09/24/2013 8:08:46 PM PDT by Mastador1 (I'll take a bad dog over a good politician any day!)
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To: EveningStar

Third party payment systems distort pricing and stifle competition by insulating the consumer and provider from decisions based on cost.
Socialist, government run systems use coercive legal and monopolistic power to reduce costs by restricting access and suppressing productivity and quality incentives.
Both systems alienate the patient and provider by interposing a mandatory middleman. We need to get back to the real meaning of insurance as a contractual way to protect assets from a defined catastrophic event.


3 posted on 09/24/2013 8:12:02 PM PDT by grumpygresh (Democrats delenda est. New US economy: Fascism on top, Socialism on the bottom.)
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To: EveningStar

The best always costs more. However it has gotten carried away.


4 posted on 09/24/2013 8:18:43 PM PDT by Venturer ( cowardice posturing as tolerance =political correctness)
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To: grumpygresh

Also Obama putting a tax on Medical equipment doesn’t help.

That was a stupid thing to do.


5 posted on 09/24/2013 8:19:27 PM PDT by Venturer ( cowardice posturing as tolerance =political correctness)
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To: EveningStar

The cost is not high at all for illegals if they go to the ER.


6 posted on 09/24/2013 8:45:12 PM PDT by 353FMG ( I refuse to say whether I am serious or sarcastic -- I respect FReepers too much.)
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To: EveningStar
Why Are American Health Care Costs So High?

Because Americans directly pay so little of them.

7 posted on 09/24/2013 8:58:22 PM PDT by Mike Darancette (The Presidency is broken.)
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To: Venturer

I would say this...up until the 1960s...medical costs probably were relative to most other countries. A guy didn’t need health insurance...he’d usually pay for a doctor’s visit with cash or a small check. By the 1980s....between technology, increasing costs of medical school, and drug-cost increases....the system was broke from that point on.

The effort by the administration to bring everyone into the health care bucket? If they’d worked at the cost factor first....making it more important than the various other gimmicks in this package, it might have made sense. Sadly, we’ve made the most expensive medical care in the world....more expensive, and probably will bankrupt the nation in the end (twenty years down the road).


8 posted on 09/24/2013 11:58:36 PM PDT by pepsionice
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To: EveningStar
...Americans spend more of their tax dollars on public health care than...

So?

What %??

What amount of PRIVATEW money do they spend?

With missing data, I can only conclude that an agenda is being driven here.

9 posted on 09/25/2013 4:47:59 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie; EveningStar
"With missing data, I can only conclude that an agenda is being driven here"

This guy in the video is saying the same thing many others have said.

He mentions several things but just look at the two top things.

1. What the hospitals charge: The hospitals have a price list that is called the Chargemaster. Most businesses have a price for their product that is based on the business' cost. The Chargemaster is an arbitrary price list that has nothing to do with the hospitals's cost. That's why the hospital charges $8 for an aspirin or band-aid. Obviously you insurance company can negotiate a lower price with the hospital than you can or what an uninsured patient can. But the insurance company is still negotiating a price discounted from the Chargemaster price list. So, the insurance company is paying only $4 for the aspirin, or $2 for the aspirin, and the hospital is still making a substantial mark-up. There is a lot of info on the Chargemaster to be found on the internet.

2. Negotiating strength: The more you buy, the better the price you can negotiate. An individual has no purchasing power. The insurance company gets a much better negotiated price. Medicare gets the cheapest price because it is a single payer system. An American can buy cheaper prescription drugs in Canada because Canada is a single payer system.

10 posted on 09/25/2013 6:04:16 AM PDT by Ben Ficklin
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