Posted on 07/20/2024 10:56:56 PM PDT by grundle
Americans spend more money on health care on a per capita basis than people in any other developed nation, yet almost half say they've struggled recently to pay for medical treatment or prescription drugs, according to a new study from Gallup and West Health.
About 45% of those polled by the organizations said they'd recently had to skip treatment or medicine either because of cost or lack of easy access. Of those, about 8% said they also wouldn't have access to affordable care if they required it today, a group that Gallup and West Health termed "cost desperate."
While 55% of Americans are "cost secure," meaning they can afford care and medicine, that's a decline from 61% who fell into that category in 2022, the study found.
More people are struggling with health care costs partly due to higher inflation as well as a long-term trend toward insurance plans with higher deductibles and less comprehensive coverage, Tim Lash, president of West Health, a nonprofit group focused promoting affordable medical care, told CBS MoneyWatch. About 94% of those surveyed believe they or Americans in general are paying too much for health care and not getting their money's worth.
"We see individuals and families making decisions that no one should have to make, from, 'Should I go on vacation or do I pay for health care and medication,' or at the worst, 'How do I ration my food to afford my prescriptions?'" Lash said. "As the wealthiest and most developed country, that's not where we should be."
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
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In Canada, I’m not allowed to see a doctor unless I pull out my healthcare card. So, I don’t see a doctor.
Yes, that was the same thing they all said to promote Obamacare before it passed in the dark of night when Pelosi said “You have to pass the bill and then you can read what’s in it.” They did.
So if it worked how come they have the same complaint now?
They are not a charitable organizations.
Have you ever looked at what a doctor visit bills the insurance company. Office visit. $279, mental health evaluation $25. ( are you doing ok?, any problems at home questions). Knee rehab. $750 for 45 minutes.
The insurance pays the doctor $75 of the $279.
Meanwhile the insurance billed you $1000 a month and gave back to the Dr. $125.... insuramce gross profit. $875 for the month.
IIRC....we are also paying for the rest of the world.
What’s truly ridiculous is how the pharmaceutical industry spends billions on ads directed at us when trained medical people are eminently more qualified to make those decisions.
They also spend billions on lobbyists and “service representatives” to steer congress and doctors to their products with bribes carefully disguised as ‘dinner meetings’, junkets and seminars along with contributions and investments carefully shaped to appear legitimate.
Add having to foot the medical costs of nearly all the illegal aliens. All of that drives up the costs of health care and drugs in the very nation that advances most of it.
Your insurance card? Why don’t you want to offer your insurance information?
Or a credit card?
It’s public insurance. I’m forced to pay for something I don’t use, like a uterus. If I use a public healthcare system, I am forcing people to use their time and resources for my benefit and I don’t like that.
[Americans spend more on health care than any other nation. Yet almost half can’t afford care.]
Welcome to ObamaCare.
We tried to tell the idiots. But nooooooooo........they were much smarter than us.
The believe Obama, Biden, Pelosi and Arlen Specter.
I though Obamacare solved this
Obamacare was a favour to the insurance companies and a scam to the American taxpayer.
You are paying premiums and still paying for your care until you have paid out $10,000 out of pocket before Obamacare kicks in.
Part of the reason for that is the US pays more for medications is that the pharmaceutical companies turn around and sell at a steep discount to other countries. So in the end the US citizens are paying for 100% of the research and development costs.
Better living through corruption.
They are not a charitable organizations.
Have you ever looked at what a doctor visit bills the insurance company. Office visit. $279, mental health evaluation $25. ( are you doing ok?, any problems at home questions). Knee rehab. $750 for 45 minutes.
The insurance pays the doctor $75 of the $279.
Meanwhile the insurance billed you $1000 a month and gave back to the Dr. $125.... insuramce gross profit. $875 for the month.
I know. I taught in Mississippi in 2005 and the blue cross to cover my wife and kid was $550 premium a month. So I bought insurance from Texas and covered them for $180. Obamacare ended that.
The American health care system is burdened by extra costs due to third party payors, middlemen, lack of transparency, and drugs that are of marginal benefit, while inattention to and poor advice on wellness and nutrition impair health.
ACA has allowed insurance companies to purchase hospital networks, which purchase other hospital networks, which purchase doctor’s practices and force them to accept the insurance company’s policies and no other.
It kills what little competition there is left.
My experience with Medicare and my own supplemental insurance is that the hospital/doctor usually get about 10-15% of what they actually charge.
The average Democrat voter is one of the dumbest creatures on Earth
There’s proof right there
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