Answers to Everyday Questions : How does the current health care system in America work?

How does the current health care system in America work?

3 Responses to “How does the current health care system in America work?”

1. freshbliss said :
   July 24th, 2010 at 8:02 pm

   How does it work?
   Not very well.

   According to the World Health Organization, the US is 1st in cost, 29th in care, and 55th in equality in access of care….

   There are third world nations doing better than we are.
   We are the only first world nation (except South Africa) that does not provide healthcare to all its residents…
2. firstam2008 said :
   July 24th, 2010 at 8:29 pm

   The real answer will be too long to post here, but a few highlights. Health care used to be under the control of doctors. In WWII the US government unconstitutionally froze wages and prices so in order to obtain and retain the best employees, employers had to add benefits as they couldn’t adjust wages. One of the benes added was health insurance which was not really needed (not anywhere as important as it is today). After WWII the link remained–in peoples’ minds and in fact.
   Come 1966 and the feds decided to take their unconstitutional Social Security program a step farther and create Medicare–now the feds were in health care big time. Medicare has grown over time and was always supposed to ensure that no doc or hospital ever got a profit from treating Medicare patients–unfortunately docs have been taken to the cleaners on the deal which is why it’s getting harder and harder to find one who takes Medicare. Also premiums are on the rise, particularly in the last decade:
   In the US, Medicare is going bankrupt. In 1998, Medicare premiums were $43.80 and in 2008 will be $96.40–up 120%. “Medigap” insurance is common because of the 20% co-pay required for service. Medicare HMOs are common because they reduce that burden without an extra charge in many cases. HOWEVER, many procedures which used to have no or a low co-pay NOW cost the full 20% for the HMO Medicare patient. ALSO the prescription coverage they tended to offer has been REDUCED in many cases to conform to the insane “donut hole” coverage of the feds. Doctors are leaving Medicare because of the low and slow pay AND because the crazy government wants to “balance” their Ponzi scheme on the backs of doctors.
   “That dark cloud lurking over the shoulder of every Massachusetts physician is Medicare. If Congress does not act, doctors’ payments from Medicare will be cut by about 5 percent annually, beginning next year through 2012, creating a financial hailstorm that would wreak havoc with already strained practices.

   Cumulatively, the proposed cuts represent a 31 percent reduction in Medicare reimbursement. If the cuts are adjusted for practice-cost inflation, the American Medical Association says Medicare payment rates to physicians in 2013 would be less than half of what they were in 1991.”
   http://www.massmed.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=vs_mar05_top&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=11037

   In the very early 1970s, others looked at the growth of health care as we made more scientific advances (DNA was only discovered in 1953, for example) and decided that being able to have control over life and death should be pretty profitable, so the concept of “managed care” based on the LIE that doctors were making “too much money” was born and embraced by those who couldn’t get into or through medical school. The door was open for the hijacking of medical care and the skyrocketing of prices. As you see with Medicare payments, doctors would NOT be the beneficiaries.
   Since that time the boldness of insurance companies to ignore their contracts as well as antitrust laws has grown wildly and the government sits and twiddles its thumbs wasting time and tax dollars on “investigating” Microsoft and baseball instead of enforcing laws. Hospitals have decided that they’ll charge the uninsured about 3 times what they charge the insured and have become aggressive in going after CITIZENS who don’t pay their bills in full.
   As always, the government has ensured problems will exist with their mandates that everyone be treated at an ER if he has a life-threatening condition, regardless of ability to pay. Sounds good on paper. Hospitals deliberately misinterpret the mandate to mean “treat all illegals no matter how little they need medical care and bill the heck out of the taxpayer.” Combine this with the stupid governmental mandate of “compassionate entry” (the Border Patrol is instructed to let in everyone who is ill so they can be treated here, knowing full well in many cases the taxpayer is going to eat the bill), and you have hard-working Americans paying more and seeing portions of their hospitals shut down because of governmental meddling and their inability to do their job: secure the borders.
   A few things that should be of interest to any thinking man on the subject of health care in the US–in other words, the pols won’t discuss this and the media give it short shrift:
   When 75% of the people who declare bankruptcy over medical bills ARE INSURED, then insurance is CLEARLY not the answer.
   “Aldrich’s situation is “asinine” but increasingly common, said Dr. Deborah Thorne of Ohio University. Thorne, co-author of a widely quoted 2005 study that found medical bills contributed to nearly half of the 1.5 million personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. each year, said that ratio has likely worsened since the data was gathered.
   …
   Like Aldrich, Thorne said, three-quarters of the individuals in the study who declared bankruptcy because of health problems were insured. ”
   http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20201807/

   Linda Peeno, MD testified that SHE had often denied treatment JUST to save the insurance company money http://www.thenationalcoalition.org/DrPeenotestimony.html

   Furthermore:
   “the vast majority of health insurance policies are through for-profit stock companies. They are in the process of “shedding lives” as some term it when “undesirable” customers are lost through various means, including raising premiums and co-pays and decreasing benefits (Britt, “Health insurers getting bigger cut of medical dollars,” 15 October 2004, investors.com). That same Investors Business Daily article from 2004 noted the example of Anthem, another insurance company. They said the top five executives (not just the CEO) received an average of an 817 percent increase in compensation between 2000 and 2003. The CEO, for example, had his compensation go from $2.5 million to $25 million during that time period. About $21 million of that was in stock payouts, the article noted.

   A 2006 article, “U.S. Health Insurance: More Market Domination, More CEO Compensation”
   (hcrenewal.blogspot.com) notes that in 56 percent of 294 metropolitan areas one insurer “controls more than half the business in health maintenance organization and preferred provider networks underwriting.” In addition to having the most enrollees, they also are the biggest purchasers of health care and set the price and coverage terms. “’The results is double-digit premium increases from 2001 and 2004—peaking with a 13.9 percent jump in 2003—soaring well above inflation and wages increases.’” Where is all that money going? The article quotes a Wall Street Journal article looking at the compensation of the CEO of UnitedHealth Group. His salary and bonus is $8 million annually. He has benefits such as the use of a private jet. He has stock-option fortunes worth $1.6 billion.”
   –Save America, Save the World by Cassandra Nathan pp. 127-128

   “Insurance Companies Robbing Patients
   Robbing patients to pay CEOs leads to unprecedented medical insurance corporation greed.
   Thursday, January 3, 2008 8:52 AM
   By: Michael Arnold Glueck & Robert J. Cihak, The Medicine Men”
   http://www.newsmax.com/medicine_men/medical_insurance/2008/01/03/61543.html

   Thus many have decided UHC like much of the rest of the world has must surely be the answer little regarding the FACT it does not work.

   Canadian doc, now in US, who studies world health care:
   http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html

   US can’t pull it off. Hillarycare can’t work–one of her problems is her refusal to deal with the massive illegalities of the handful of insurers who rip us off. However, Romney of Taxachusetts put her basic plan into place. Result: “Massachusetts announced that spending on its health care plan would increase by $400 million in 2008, a cost expected to be borne largely by taxpayers.”
   http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080129/ZNYT02/801290745
   Last modified: January 29. 2008 5:03AM

   In that article it notes how CA could not pull of UHC. About one month later we saw the inevitable headline:
   “L.A. County may close most of its clinics

   Facing a deficit, health officials want to pay private centers to take up the
   slack. Critics say the plan’s logic is faulty”
   http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-clinics14feb14,1,5252458,fu
   ll.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

   BTW, sensible plan that would work:
   http://www.booklocker.com/books/3068.html
   Read the PDF, not the blurb, for the bulk of the plan. Book is searchable on Amazon.com
   Cassandra Nathan’s Save America, Save the World
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