I live in a town where 45% of the economy is some how involved in the medical and medical training field. There are over 5 hospitals with a ton of medical clinics in my town of a little more than 100,000 people. I go through some of these doctors neighborhoods and they live in mansions. That is why your bills are so high, those doctors got to get paid what the medical field thinks their worth. Are they worth it, I don't (*)(*)(*)(*)ing know?
Paying 55 grand for the quality of bedpan changers you get is indicative of the problem the Republicans think was just fine the way it was with the medical ripoff scheme of corporate America. 55 grand, and you see your doctor for what? 2 minutes, collectively? 55 grand, they ought to be serving you Filet Mignon for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and have live dancing girls, and fine champagnes everyday. Instead, you get part time, poorly paid green students fresh out of school, shift changers or bedpan changers who know nothing.
We also need a set of laws passed which drastically limit the cost of Ferraris. I want one but they are clearly gouging. Let's mandate they sell them for the same price as a Camry.
I blame the lady In Maryland that got bit. This is simply a matter of personal responsibility. What kind of half witted lunatic stops to take a picture of an overlook?? She MUST have been a Lib. /Sarcasm
Interesting attempts by pro-free market types to explain how these forces work – or should work – in health care. Prices too high? Introduce price control. Oops, not free market then is it? Let hospitals compete with one another? Okay, what suffers so that the profit margin is maintained? Face it, it doesn't work in health care. There's an alliance between health corporates and insurance companies working in the US system. Think about it. People pay a lot of money per year for health insurance. Insurance works on the basis of spreading the cost when it comes due. Insurance companies have plenty of money to pay the bills so they can go sky high. Insurance companies, as insurance companies do, will work to try and reduce costs to them so they can maximise profits. Hence the contracts and get-out clauses for insurance companies. It's a mess and not amount of equivocation will un-mess it. The very fact that health insurance is available immediately distorts any free market effect. If you're a free market type then you should be calling for the disbandment of health insurance companies to allow prices to fall to the level which the average consumer can afford to pay.
Very cool dodge! Your response cleverly avoids ANY substantiation WHATSOEVER of YOUR false claim that "Obamacare prohibits pricing disclosure". My report is not a "claim", it is a FACT. I chose a blog to source it because it was an easy to read article. But here is another! Why can't YOU publish ONE SINGLE SUBSTANTIATION of YOUR claim? http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Newsletters/Quality-Matters/2012/April-May/In-Focus.aspx
Indigent/ illegal alien health care costs and malpractice insurance premiums are passed on to working Americans and/or insurance companies via absurd health care prices. We already have socialized medicine.
Enlightening.... Am I the only one that now wants to open a snake farm and invest in a few venom milking machines?
If you paid more attention to what Obamacare actually is, instead of what right wing media tells you it is, you'd realize that that is precisely what one of its primary objectives is. By making the exchanges the largest single groups in any given state, their buying power will be used to manage costs. That's why we should have gone with the public option. We would have had one very large national group, with a lot of buying power, even if most people still had thier private insurance. But the health care industry, and the insurers were terrified of that. There is little or no competition in the current system, even though the hard right persists in believing the myth that it is.
Actually insurance itself has been a big factor. If there was no insurance they could not charge these prices. The difference is lets say cost of an office visit billed to the insurance company is $150 you may pay $30. When I was a kid my parents had no insurance, they paid cash and even though they were not rich they could afford the cash payment. I understand catastrophic things happen...seems we'd all be better off with paying cash and only having insurance for catastrophic emergencies if prices were in line. I worked for a doctor at one point and she said about someone complaining how much his insurance was charged for a procedure and she stated, "what does he care, his insurance is paying for it". This is the kind of attitude that has spiked these prices. Couldn't believe the doctor didn't understand the more the insurance is charged the more prices go up and finally the benefits go down. This is what we have seen over the last decade...premiums go up, benefits go down.
This is just one of thousands of examples of how the current corrupt cost plus system drives up prices and costs. A lot of this goes to middlemen who contribute nothing of value at all to health. Consider this example from the front page of the New York Times a couple of Sundays ago. (and notice how none of the righties ever want to actually have a substantive discussion about this type of thing). http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/health/for-medical-tourists-simple-math.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
What bullcrap. Since when does it cost that much to milk a freaking snake? It should have been free for her.
Its not the snakes that cost the big money. 10 snakes of each desired species would supply enough venom to produce all the anti-venom you need for a 100,000 doses. But you make anti-venom by injecting the venom in specially bred and cared for herd of horses under careful and special care by veterinarians, then withdraw blood slowly and purify out the special antibodies in the horse's blood in laboratory grade clean rooms, then process it into a final version of pharmaceutical grade animal product for people. It costs millions to keep a herd of special horses under clinical monitoring and clean conditions, with the needed testing and tracking. With only a few thousand cases of snakebyte to treat each year, there is simply not enough money to support such operations to interest ANY private business. But feel free to do so, and if you sold it for $100 per does, a grateful group of snakebite victims will send you a Christmas card, I am sure, and the inrance CEOs will thoroughly appreciate the extra profits and paycheck bonuses you have given them! http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Comm...r-to-heal-surpasses-its-commercial-value.aspx
I wonder how much of the 55K went to tylenol? 30K? - - - Updated - - - Your post contains too much truth. Republicans don't find it profitable.
I guessing after reading this not so many will laugh at the concept of sucking and spitting the venom out at the scene...
I posted links proving my point. If a hospital accepts medicare or medicaid they cannot post their prices online. Its against the law. I do believe anyone who voted for that bill to prevent market forces from reducing prices, is a criminal and defrauded the American people, billions of dollars each and every year.
you're justifying the unjustifiable. articles like this prove how wrong you are on the issue of private health care - - - Updated - - - BINGO !