As flawed as it is, here is, in my view, the brighest spot of US Healthcare (user search)
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
April 30, 2024, 06:59:41 PM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  General Politics
  U.S. General Discussion (Moderators: The Dowager Mod, Chancellor Tanterterg)
  As flawed as it is, here is, in my view, the brighest spot of US Healthcare (search mode)
Pages: [1]
Author Topic: As flawed as it is, here is, in my view, the brighest spot of US Healthcare  (Read 1983 times)
Matty
boshembechle
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,969


« on: June 23, 2014, 03:20:52 AM »

Medical Innovation. Over the last decade, America has produced half, half, of the world's new medicine and medical devices. Today, 12 of the top 20 medical device companies are headquartered in the U.S. Whether or not this holds is anyone's guess, but the tremendous amount of innovation that occurs in our medical field here in America benefits health systems all over the world.

One concerning statistic is that America only ranks 17th out of 21 OECD nations  in the effective rate of R&D tax credits.
Logged
Matty
boshembechle
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,969


« Reply #1 on: June 23, 2014, 01:26:03 PM »

Obamacare is, and by far, the brightest spot of US healthcare.

Actually, no, he's right. Innovation is where the US is the world leader in health services.

Maybe that's just me, but I don't really prize the quality of healthcare if it's the privilege of an elite.

While healthcare is "inaccessible" to many, calling it a privilege of the wealthy elite is laughable. Last time I checked, 85% of people had access to health care.
Logged
Matty
boshembechle
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,969


« Reply #2 on: June 23, 2014, 01:34:23 PM »

Obamacare is, and by far, the brightest spot of US healthcare.

Actually, no, he's right. Innovation is where the US is the world leader in health services.

That's what you can do when you have a stringent patent system that allows companies to reap ridiculous profits from a fairly broken healthcare system.
Ridiculous profits? Try again. Overall, the profit margin for health insurance companies last year was 3.4%. That ranks 87th out of 215 industries. Surely these will increase since we have a law now that makes it illegal not to have a product offered by these companies.
Logged
Matty
boshembechle
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,969


« Reply #3 on: June 23, 2014, 05:12:51 PM »

Obamacare is, and by far, the brightest spot of US healthcare.

Actually, no, he's right. Innovation is where the US is the world leader in health services.

Maybe that's just me, but I don't really prize the quality of healthcare if it's the privilege of an elite.
Ugh, in 2008, only 14% of Americans were uninsured. While this is a number that everyone would agree is too high in and of itself as the most vulnerable Americans were unprotected, healthcare was hardly the privilege of "teh elites" before Obamacare.

A good share of these 86% only had extremely limited and low-quality coverage. Certainly not what it takes to have access to the finest American health innovation. And yes, I know Obamacare has only partially changed that.

Like me. I am an extremely healthy young man who eats healthy, and rarely goes to the doctor. I have (or had, after it was cancelled) a catastrophic plan in case something severe happens. I deal with sickness with OTC medicine and home remedies. If I truly need to go to the urgent care, I'll pay cash. Not all, but many of the people who had "bare-bone" plans were in the same boat as me. Now we have to pay a significant amount more a month for a plan we will never use.
Logged
Matty
boshembechle
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,969


« Reply #4 on: June 24, 2014, 01:05:29 PM »

If you can't afford to pay for something, how do you consider that having access to it?  If you hit your coverage limit and the procedure or medicine you need costs $100k, you have as much access to it as you have access to a new $100k Mercedes. 


I suppose the "problem" with healthcare is that you are oftentimes sold a Mercedes without you knowing and assuming insurance will cover it. So they do have access to these devices, they might just get screwed over by the insurance company afterwards. Obamacare does tackle this situation by abolishing coverage limits.

No.  If you don't have insurance approval or a means to pay for expensive medicine or care, nobody is going to do it.  Do you think a hospital is going to do a $20k procedure and just hope that someday you pay your $100k bill?  They would if you came into the ER with a gunshot wound, sure.  They wouldn't if you have a chronic illness that's not an imminent emergency.  Or, in the case of medicine, you can't go to CVS and say, "can I pretty please have this medicine for free?" 

I was actually in this exact situation as a young invincible healthy person.  I developed a chronic inflammatory disease and my doctor prescribed an expensive drug.   I hit my prescription coverage limit the second time I filled the prescription and I couldn't afford $200k a year on medicine so I had to go without medicine I desperately needed.  But, it was OK because I theoretically had access to it, right?


Where did I defend coverage limits?

Also, even if an insurance company denies a certain procedure or medicine, it is not based on whether you have a good insurance plan or a crap one. All policies sold by that insurer would deny covering that, no matter how "Cadillac" your plan is. If an insurer denies covering something, it must medically justify that. With obamacare solving the coverage limit problem, it is true that the vast majority of people in America have access to the new innovations in medicine today.

We're on the same page then.  Although there's a ton of other access issues that we still have.   Even if you have insurance, we have a divide between the have and the have-nots in the post-Obamacare world.  There are the doctors and hospitals that only cater to poor people.  There are doctors and hospitals that only cater to rich people.  I know here in NYC that if I had to go to the hospital, I would never go to my 3 closest hospitals because they're all horrendous.  I wouldn't call an ambulance, I would get a taxi to Manhattan to go to the white people hospital.

This problem isn't confined to America. Poorer areas in other first world nations often have worse care than the richer areas, even though the systems are "public".
Logged
Pages: [1]  
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.03 seconds with 12 queries.