Why are healthcare costs one-sixth of our entire economy ??

[kentuck]

Doesn't that seem like an exorbitant amount?

Why does it cost so much? And why does it give back so little?

Does every doctor have to be a millionaire? Is that why they took their Hippocratic Oath?

Does every hospital have to have the latest MRI machines and modern medical gadgets?

Perhaps we need a middle man between the doctors and the insurance companies? Especially since the insurance companies are the middle men between the doctors and their patients.

The critics of healthcare reform say they do not want government messing with "one-sixth of our economy". What happens when it is one-fifth of our economy? Or one-fourth of our economy?

That is simply too much to pay to keep the nation healthy. It is certainly too much to pay to keep the nation unhealthy and without means to see a doctor.

In my opinion, healthcare in this country should not cost more than 10% of our economy. The insurance companies and the healthcare field, like the big banks, have become "too big to fail".

Why are they one-sixth of our economy??

[RandomThoughts]

1. Good question.

They are probalby including think tanks on any issue related to health. Or research in any area regarding people. Any drug research and distribution, a huge percentage of the people are on drugs prescribed for things, some pushed by profit.

That would be my guess.

Hard to imagine buildings that cover less then .1% of area would be 18% of economy.

[Captain Hilts]

2. People here support health insurance companies because it provides jobs. nt

[sinkingfeeling]

3. That is the question. Doctors claim it's the 'overhead' that kills their profit, even at $270 an

appointment. They need huge office staffs to handle all the paperwork, either from insurance companies or Medicare/Medicaid. The hospitals all think they must have the latest and greatest CAT scanners, MRI's, etc. to be 'competitive' since they're all 'for profit' institutions anymore. The drug companies claim somebody has to pay for all that R&D they do, but they actually pay more for direct to consumer advertising.

Oh, for those days when every county or city ran the local hospital, doctors charged $10 or $15 a visit and actually did the work themselves without sending one to a dozen 'specialists', and when drug companies couldn't run magazine, TV, and radio ads 24/7.

[Echo In Light]

9. +1

[xchrom]

4. I for one can't complain about medical technology.

Can their use be abused - but they do save lives.

[Ron Green]

5. Because the medicine business bought the regulators a long time ago.

Just as the FCC has been owned by the broadcasting business, for a long time.

[Trillo]

24. Yours is a short post lacking obvious duality in meaning.

It surely seems to be true.

[independent voter]

6. hospitals/clinics charge 30x, 40x, or even 50x what they should

It's a fact, and there are even some cases of it being even worse (the $1000 toothbrushes at some hospitals).

Imagine if you went to buy a car, and instead of paying $20,000 for a Ford Focus, the sticker price instead said $600,000.

That's basically the gist of it. Doctors get paid WAY too much, and all it does is make a lot of people become doctors who otherwise wouldn't if the pay was in line with the actual realities of our society. That makes the average doctor worse, since most of them don't really care about helping people, and are just in it for the money.

The second part of the problem is of course the insurance companies. They are basically organized crime, as far as I am concerned. They operate on the opposite principle that drives every other business. Instead of making more money for the more services they provide, the insurance companies make more money for the more coverage they deny.

[PDJane]

7. Profit. Exorbitant profit.

Doctors aren't the prime cause of the costs, although specialization is rampant. Doctors can't pay off the student loans they have to take out to become doctors without specialization. That is the prime reason that we don't have enough family doctors; they can't afford family practice.

The US is the only country in the world without drug price caps. That's a necessity.

Insurance companies skim; they provide as little as possible while charging as much as possible. So do for profit hospitals; if you are going to get sick, a for profit hospital means that you are more likely to die; there's a cost/benefit thing in there that speaks to the bottom line.

The solution is to take exorbitant profit out of the system as a motive. Single-payer health care would go a long way towards changing that.

[FarCenter]

8. About half is spent on dying and most of the rest on chronic disease or permanent injury

Very little is spent on people who get sick or injured and recover.

About half of expenditures are during the last 18 months of life.

Most of the rest is due to -
- problems at birth due to premature birth or to genetic or congenital conditions that are permanently debilitating, e.g spina bifida.
- injuries that are permanent, e.g. paraplegic ex-football players and divers,
- disease that is chronic, e.g. failed kidney, congestive heart failure.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

12. disease that is chronic, e.g. failed kidney, congestive heart failure

SUGAR.... pure and simple sugar.

[FarCenter]

15. Sugar is also responsible for Type II diabetes

Type II diabetes was essentially non-existent during WW II in London.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

17. Advanced glycation endproducts, EVEN IN NON DIABETICS do

significant damage in the body... it is a cumulative effect and the results add to our healthcare nightmare.

[area51]

19. "sugar"

My dad died of congestive heart failure; he didn't eat too much sugar and wasn't overweight. But thanks for seeing things in a simplistic, insulting, black-and-white view. :eyes:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

21. Sugar.... no matter where it comes from, crackers, bread, pasta, whatever

http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/content/28/23/2879.abstract


Conclusion Plasma AGEs, in particular CML levels, are related to the severity and prognosis of CHF. The fact that the relation between CML and prognosis subsided after correction for renal function may suggest that AGE accumulation in renal failure explains part of the prognostic value of renal function in CHF. However, further investigation is warranted to exclude the possibility that CML is just an innocent marker of renal function.

[Hannah Bell]

34. & sugar is also what your body runs on.

[mopinko]

you forgot

self serving. poster is in the woo business.

[mopinko]

31. you forgot

self serving. poster is in the woo business.

[ParkieDem]

16. This is the real issue

When people cite the "x% of GDP" number or the trillions spent on health care, so much of it goes to either (1) end-of-life care, or (2) chronic conditions, many (but not all) of which are preventable.

Regardless of what comes out of health care reform, we are going to have to deal with these two issues. It doesn't matter if consumers are paying insurance premiums directly, if consumers are paying subsidized premiums, if consumers buy in to a "public option," or if we adopt a single-payer system. Something will have to be done about these two main drivers of costs.

[Festivito]

38. BULLPUCKY. That's paid by Medicare, 1/50th of GDP.

Medicare runs on a 3% tax paid only by the 100 million workers out of a 300 million persons America. So, MC's only pulling in about 1% to 2% of GDP, where we are paying 17% or that 1/6 figure.

Yet, MC pays for THE MOST EXPENSIVE care, care for the elderly, end of life, and especially, care for all the people that the insurance companies dropped.

The question should be is what costs so much that constitutes the 15% remainder. That's just inflated costs so that doctors and hospitals can recover costs when, randomly, people go bankrupt.

[ixion]

10. Because the entire health 'care' industry has been gamed by the same people

our 'honorable' congress is now considering promoting to a quasi federal agency.

Oh yeah, I'm sure that's going to work out just swell. After all, insurance companies have always operated in the public interest, right? :eyes: :sarcasm:

[AnArmyVeteran]

30. Love your 'dripping with sarcasm' gif!

The only way we the people are going to change the current corrupt system is to stop the massive amounts of money flowing into the pockets and campaigns of candidates. Idiotic conservatives always fight against any campaign finance regulation because they are so easily duped into believing money is free speech. Then the dimwitted conservatives whine about what the government is doing without even realizing they are doing it to themselves, and to the rest of us.

We need to limit the amount of money spent on each election. We need public financing of elections. We need a law that prohibits anyone from contributing to a candidate unless they can vote for that candidate. We need to limit the amount a person can give to a candidate to $100. We need to prevent any money coming from outside a district or a state to stop the corrupting influence 'foreign' money has over local elections. The average American will never get honest representation until we the people force our government to make these changes. Until then, we are going to continue to have a government controlled by corporate whores. Money IS the root of all evil, and to remove that evil corruption from our political system we are going to have to limit how campaigns are financed.

But now unfortunately, the right wing conservatives (corporate whores) on the supreme court have ruled that they want more corruption in elections. They want corporations to buy every election in the country. They even want foreign corporations to be allowed to corrupt local elections with unlimited amounts of corrupting cash. How can we the people with our modest means ever get someone who is honest and who will represent us when we have corporations outspending us with unlimited amounts of corrupt money?

And while the intelligent people are trying to fight back against the constant onslaught from corrupt corporate influence over our elections, dimwitted conservatives keep fighting to keep the corrupt status quo.

[global1]

11. If I Was Paying 1/6th Of My Income To Heat My House And My House Was Still Cold I.......

would have to begin to think that perhaps I should be investing in better insulation, better windows, better doors, a new more efficient furnace in order to be able to heat my house and keep it at a reasonable temperature and cutting the amount of money I'd have to be spending to heating the house.

I may at first have to spend some money on improvements in order to save money on my monthly outlay to heat the house. Make the house more energy efficient to decrease my monthly heating payments.

This is what we need to do with healthcare. We need to make the system more efficient.

[CanSocDem]

22. Indeed!

If a fraction of the costs spent on treatment were spent on eliminating the cause (as was mentioned upthread) most of the medical industry could be reduced to local well-ness clinics.

Of course that means they would have to confront their corporate partners.

.

[SoCalDem]

36. and if your bank charged you $30 to cash a $100 check, you'd find a new bank

:)

[The2ndWheel]

41. Interesting

Not one mention of a sweater, or sweatpants, and even an extra sock. It's all about molding the environment to fit us, instead of adapting to our surroundings. Good or bad, it's just interesting.

[Dappleganger]

13. "For Profit" pretty much tells it all. nt

[HysteryDiagnosis]

14. Sugar, pure and simple sugar... worse on your body than some

stimulant drugs... methinks this could be the case.

[HughMoran]

18. & they think that $1 of $100 profit is reasonable. That's $25 Billion profit/year!!

:mad:

[Cleita]

20. It isn't the doctors and health care providers, it's the

insurance and big PhRMA that are one-sixth of the economy and that the corporate whores in Washington need to finance their campaigns. Bring in publicly financed campaign reform and you will see that part of the economy go the way of the dodo bird and replaced with commercial enterprises that actually contribute to the wealth of the nation not just the top 5% of the billionaires and multi-millionaires in this country.

[Orsino]

23. Because a class of parasitic executives and shareholders love it that way...

...and their tame Congress fights for the status quo.

[ljm2002]

25. Agreed!

And doesn't it make you wonder, when they say "We can't mess with it, because it's 1/6th of our whole economy!" -- doesn't it make you wonder, why our wonderful Democratic Congress people never make that point? They never shoot back with, That is exactly the problem we need to solve! Why not, I wonder.

[librechik]

26. Because Medicine is Mysterious and Complicated

And unscrupulous types can play games with the books when consumers don't know what things are and can't get access to the un-bowdlerized receipts and don't know what they are looking at when they read a list of "codes" which are actually lists of kleenex, straws and morphine translated into numbers. Why does a sponge cost $1000? Because these fraudsters can convince you it's a "special medical sponge" and get away with it. Cuz maybe it is--how would we ever know? Continued on a vast scale.

[Hannah Bell]

27. because inflated costs are a good way to drain money from the peasants

& transfer it back to corporate interests.

i.e. they pay us lousy salaries to work for them, & get it back by overcharging on health care -- & everything else.

"accumulate, accumulate! that is moses & the prophets!" (or -- profits!)

[laughingliberal]

29. +1000 nt

[AnArmyVeteran]

28. The Insurance Industry is worse than the MAFIA

Not long ago in the big cities in the US shop owners used to be forced to buy 'insurance' from mobsters. It was a 'protection racket' where the 'mob' insured that the shop owners wouldn't be beaten up, killed or have their stores burned down. People were forced to pay or suffer the consequences. There is NO difference between the insurance companies of today and those mobsters. They are the same ruthless sociopaths but they use a different method to shake down their victims. For the past sixty years the insurance mob paid off government to be exempt from anti-trust laws. They have used the fortunes they made to buy off government officials and hire lobbyists to make sure no laws could be enacted to change their shake down scheme.

I wish the president would use the same language I used above to describe what is going on. People would understand, even some of the dimwitted conservatives who always seem to be easily duped into supporting those who seek to harm them.

[OneBlueSky]

32. well, for one thing the insurance industry siphons off a third or more . . .

of our health care dollars in exchange for . . . doing what? . . .

[girl gone mad]

33. You're asking the right question, though no one else seems to be.

Just like when nobody was asking why average home prices were suddenly five to ten times annual income in many places when the historical norm was no more than three times median income.

[slipslidingaway]

40. Exactly - Who could have seen the housing bubble coming ...

or the equities bubble when they were rising double digits in the second half of the 90's.

:shrug:

[SoCalDem]

35. It's just withheld wages for the people who have boss-offered insurance

and then most even pay EXTRA from their checks for "their share"..and then some MORE when they pay copays & deductibles & RX..

It's wages NOT paid to employees....wages for YOUR labor that is transferred to the already-rich insurance/HMO execs.. and since they have clever dodges, THEY are weaseling out of paying taxes on it..

If ALL the wages were given to the employee, and then they were taxed fairly..and have NOTHING out-of-pocket to pay, that 1/6th would be a LOT less, because taxes would be paid on ALL the income earned..and without 30% being skimmed off the top, prices WOULD go down for all of us..

[eShirl]

37. because we were too stupid to nationalize health care at any point in the 20th century

now look at us

[Juche]

39. Interesting articles

http://www.ahrq.gov/research/ria19/expendria.htm

http://www.kaiseredu.org/topics_im.asp?imID=1&parentID=61&id=358



I think a big part is that in the US the goal of the health care industry is to make money. The result is everyone is trying to provide the most expensive services whereas in other systems the goal is to provide the best care for the least amount of money. That is my guess.

The US actually used to spend as little as other OECD nations. Back in 1960 we all spent 3-6% of GDP. However from 1980-2008 ours went up 7 points (from 9% to 16%, now at 17%) while other countries only saw theirs go up 2-3 points. Canada for example went from 8% to 11% during that period we were going from 9% to 16%.

I don't know if it was Reaganomics or what. But a lot of bad things did start to happen around 1980. That is when productivity was disconnected from wage earnings, it was when the top 1% started seeing their incomes rise, it was when debt started piling up, etc.