Why is healthcare so expensive?

What is stupefying is how few people make the connection between the U.S. government introducing horrifyingly bad nutritional guidelines in 1977 and the wave of obesity and poor health that has followed (though much mortality was statistically masked by smoking cessation). The government, in concert with media, academia and corporate interests, has weaponized the American diet against it's own people to create a perfect storm of addiction, toxicity and obesigenicity, and the masses have cluelessly followed like sheep, and even blame themselves for "Lack of willpower" or "Just bad genetics, I guess!". Joseph Goebbels himself would be green with envy at the level of human suffering and destruction so easily wrought by simple tools of mass destruction like the food pyramid (now "My Plate"), introduction of poisonous industrial seed oils, sugar by ten thousand names and the cholesterol hoax.

Liberal logic says we should trust the same government that gave us the USADA food guide pyramid to make all of our medical decisions.

A few reasons why wrote:

It’s no mystery. I’ll tell you why...

-Big pharma constantly developing new expensive drugs with marginal benefit (FDA to blame as well)

-People unwilling to accept death even when terminally ill . Live their last days in an ICU on a ventilator for $20k/day instead of peacefully at home

-doctors doing too many unnecessary tests and procedures

-doctors unwilling/unable to remove life support.

-Average person is fat and unhealthy and unwilling to take any personal responsibility for their health.

-healthcare administrators being paid enormous salaries for basically doing nothing. Similarly, ‘overhead costs’ which provide no real value to patients

I pretty much covered everything.

I was expecting to find some complaints on this, but I agree with all of this.

When going into a doctor there should be something very specific that you are doing, they don't need to throw you the kitchen sink and prescribe a ton of expensive drugs that will have marginal benefits.

To add to it, I think there should be more physician assistants which are at the lower end of the salary than doctors that can take care a lot of the stuff that doctors end up spending their time on.

1) Insurance companies

2) Lawyers working to protect the insurance companies

3) Pharmaceutical companies

4) Lawyers working to protect the pharmaceutical companies

5) Payoffs to politicians, such as members of congress and the senate, by insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies.

6) Hospital Staff & Administration

7) Lawyers working to protect the hospitals and their administrators

That other post wasn’t me. I’m referring to a single payer system. No insurance companies, government sets prices for drugs and services, all health care providers and facilities nationalized. Pharmaceutical industry and medical supplies/devices remain private but government negotiates price. I’m a republican (having doubts about the party however) but the current system is so broken that even with my doubts about government control, it would be better. A family member needed care. I have top tier insurance, but have an out of pocket deductible. The insurance company sent me a statement showing me what I paid and what I would have paid without insurance. I paid for everything and all my monthly insurance premiums provided was a negotiated discount. Why do I need an insurance middleman that I have to pay to negotiate a discount, this isn’t a Sam’s Club membership.

A few reasons why wrote:

It’s no mystery. I’ll tell you why...

-doctors doing too many unnecessary tests and procedures

-doctors unwilling/unable to remove life support.

-Average person is fat and unhealthy and unwilling to take any personal responsibility for their health.

Obvious low hanging fruit is better regulation of drug costs and eliminating hospital administrators and overhead. Next get physicians to stop over testing and insurance to stop paying for unnecessary tests. That will cut costs by about 50%.

I feel strongly that some of the "unnecessary" tests are due to physicians protecting themselves against lawsuits.

Limiting the ability to sue/capping potential damages should result in fewer tests and lower malpractice insurance premiums both of which should reduce what the hospitals/physicians charge.

I came across this just today. I had totally neglected the evidence from cosmetic surgeries or procedures such as Lasik that are not covered by insurance.

https://arcdigital.media/the-big-thing-democrats-are-missing-about-healthcare-b0189b6d1948

Let there be a true free market....

Look it up wrote:

Elvin wrote:

In what developed country is the government the single owner of the healthcare industry?

Japan, England, France, Canada, Sweden,

Hell. Name one "developed" country other than the USA that does not have govt provided healthcare for essential services.

I think private health insurance is available in Canada and England. Not sure about the others.

How well are German ambulances equipped? What is the training of the staff like? Are ambulances required to take any and all regardless of their ability to pay?

Precious Roy wrote:

1. Patents. Give people legal monopolies on drugs and medical devices and the costs will be astronomical. Get rid of patents and you will have more innovation and cheaper products. Without patent protection, the value shifts from the innovation to the innovators and innovations are free to all to improve instead of being locked away in a legally protected monopoly.

Really? Get rid of patents? Do you know what it costs to take a drug from idea to the market? How many drugs that are created never get pass the first round of trials?

So I spend a few million developing a new drug (more like hundreds of millions). The FDA approves it. As soon as I make one and my competitor gets it, he/she breaks it down and figures out the formula. He can then start making it pretty cheap (making most of these drugs is not the crazy expensive part) and start selling them while I am still trying to recoup my R&D costs.

What you will see is far less innovation.

I am for reforming some aspects of the patent system when it comes to medical devices and drugs, but your idea is the exact wrong way to go.

josh1988 wrote:

Overpaid docs wrote:

Most docs are overpaid. This inflates costs. Most of family medicine can be done by a PA.

Most family medicine is done by PA's and Nurse Practitioners.

I think for the most part on an individual level health care providers try to be somewhat accommodating with patients regarding costs.

They are still under the supervision of a MD; that adds to the cost.

YMMV wrote:

What is stupefying is how few people make the connection between the U.S. government introducing horrifyingly bad nutritional guidelines in 1977 and the wave of obesity and poor health that has followed (though much mortality was statistically masked by smoking cessation). The government, in concert with media, academia and corporate interests, has weaponized the American diet against it's own people to create a perfect storm of addiction, toxicity and obesigenicity, and the masses have cluelessly followed like sheep, and even blame themselves for "Lack of willpower" or "Just bad genetics, I guess!". Joseph Goebbels himself would be green with envy at the level of human suffering and destruction so easily wrought by simple tools of mass destruction like the food pyramid (now "My Plate"), introduction of poisonous industrial seed oils, sugar by ten thousand names and the cholesterol hoax.

Except how many Americans were following these guidelines to begin with? I agree they were poor though.

Sugar (which I think is less evil than I take it you do) was added when the low-fat idea was introduced because low fat food did not taste good.

I argue that soft drinks added HFCS in part because of sugar tariffs and that with a surplus of corn it became cheaper and easier to use (liquids are easier to use in a food manufacturing process). To me a soft drink with cane sugar (which is what I grew up with) was incredibly satiating. Not so much with HFCS. Other friends have noticed the same thing. So people consume more of the HFCS soft drinks which means ingesting more calories that have far less nutritional value. (Nothing really all that special about HFCS--the body processes it a little differently than cane sugar).

You are a rare Republican who calls for nationalizing 1/6th of the US economy...

I blame hospitals just charging arbitrary prices.

And principle agent problem.

And cost disease.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/05/the-baumol-effect.html

Luv2Run wrote:

How well are German ambulances equipped? What is the training of the staff like? Are ambulances required to take any and all regardless of their ability to pay?

Extremely wellequipped ambulances. Everyone are insured so no need to pay.

About 87.5% of the persons with health insurance are members of the public system, while 12.5% are covered by private insurance, but the difference in the health care between public and private are minimal, even if the private system is much more expensive.

In general the training of any staff in any non academic profession in Europe is way beyond what is required in the US.

Bingo! I work in clinical research and was just going to post the same thing. The majority of people have absolutely no clue about the time and money involved in getting a drug approved, not to mention all the time and money spent on the drugs that never get approved.

Lack of ownership wrote:

Pharmaceutical industry and medical supplies/devices remain private but government negotiates price.

That’s isn’t negation. It’s extortion. If we sic the government on the people who make medicines, stick guns to their heads, they will cease to function, cease to do their work of curing diseases, and multitudes who would have been healed in a free market, will instead suffer and perish.

I’m a republican (having doubts about the party however) but the current system is so broken that even with my doubts about government control, it would be better.

You are a “Republican” in name only. Your whole argument and is textbook leftist and literally indistinguishable from what a vagina-hat wearing, Bernie supporting, ANTIFA-Flag waving, scrawny little dickhead would say. Make no distinction between an act of persuasion and one of brute force. Point to the failure of the status quo as the only evidence needed to justify socialism. You ignore the obvious free market explanations of our problem and are obvlious to the concept of free market reform. Cherry pick anecdotes to fit the narrative. You are a leftist loser!