No med insurance, how did people do it

[doug osborne]

Well, this should probably go in the political forum...

 

The money, in the medical industry, goes straight to the top. Corporate executives are among the highest paid in the US. forty years ago, that overhead just wasn't there, and went to your local doctor.

 

The average surgeon in the US earned $78,000 last year - more that I make but it doesn't really seem like a lot. They spend nearly 50% of their time and profits administering paperwork for HMOs, insurance, Medicaid, etc. They did go to school longer than I did, and I want them to be well rested when they put a knife in me. Insurance is expensive to them, but the rise in malpractice insurance precisely tracks the rise in insurance company profits - not court cases by ambulance chasers, not doctors drunkenly snipping out the wrong kidney.

 

We are swamped with immigrants in many parts of this country, and they indeed use emergency rooms for their urgent care needs, and this raises the price of hospital care for all of us. California is particularly impacted by this, and receives less monetary support from the federal government per capita than most states, when reasonably we should be compensated for this federal problem (California is not, yet, a soveriegn nation, and can't be expected to protect a federal border on its own).

 

Californians are also nearly twice as likely as residents of most other states to file a Workman's Comp claim. Since medical services are compensated at wholesale rates, this also increases medical costs for those of us who don't file WC claims.

 

IMO we, the richest nation in the world with the best Doctors, Nurses, and Hospitals, should make a system where we never deny the best medical care to anyone regardless of their ability to pay - anything less is shameful.

[Billster]

Originally posted by Doug Osborne:

Well, this should probably go in the political forum...

 

... Insurance is expensive to them, but the rise in malpractice insurance precisely tracks the rise in insurance company profits - not court cases by ambulance chasers, not doctors drunkenly snipping out the wrong kidney...

Home run Doug. Here's some facts about medical malpractice lawsuits:

 

98% never reach trial. They are dismissed or settled before trial

@ 95% of those that reach trial are jury verdicts IN FAVOR OF THE DOCTOR, no money changes hands.

The average jury verdict is NOT in the millions of dollars.

 

You hear about extraordinary verdicts because they are unusual. Thousands of people die every day, but maybe only once in a year does somebody die because of a bizarre gardening accident, so that's what you see on the TV news.

 

Originally posted by Doug Osborne:

IMO we, the richest nation in the world with the best Doctors, Nurses, and Hospitals, should make a system where we never deny the best medical care to anyone regardless of their ability to pay - anything less is shameful.

I agree. Unfortunately, I believe they should have this resolved by the time I am approximately 174 years old.

[PBBPaul]

This is an interesting look at medical costs and the effect of civil liability cases. It's fairly specific to Georgia but has some interesting national info as well.

 

Here's another one.

The unreliable nature of medical malpractice litigation is creating a crisis in our health-care system. Studies show that results in malpractice litigation correlate with outcome, not negligence. Fear of litigation has fundamentally altered the practice of medicine, eroding the quality and availability of health care.

 

I don't want to get political but I believe that litigation has a significant effect on medical costs. I served on a jury a while back that had to determine the amount of an award and I was truly amazed at how eager some of these people (my fellow jurors) were to give the plaintiffs millions of dollars for relatively minor injuries. Other influences include insurance fraud by both hospitals and individuals and misuse of our health care facilities. Like the immigrants using the emergency rooms for urgent care, many poor or indigent folk also use ambulance and paramedic services for transportation to the emergency rooms.

[FrankieP]

Damn!

After reading some of the horror stories here, I thank God I got exellent medical coverage for me and my family. Almost 3 years ago, my wife was hospitalized for 2 weeks when she she was only 30 weeks in her pregnancy (carried twins btw). They gave her a whole lotta medicine to try to stop her from her labor, magnesium, steriods...etc...

Finally, she gave birth to 2 premature twin boys, 32 weeks old. My 2 boys stayed in the NICU for another month because of low birth weight. Did I pay a lot for the hospital bill? No, probably close to $100.00 for non-related things.

 

It's been 2 and a half weeks now since I fractured my elbow and had to be treated in the ER, did I pay anything? No, just a twenty dollar copay and 15 dollars to have duplicates of my xray. Pain meds, I paid $10.00 worth good for a whole month and i'm not talking about over the counter stuff like tylenol or motrin. I'm talking about the good stuff!!!

 

Thank God for medical insurance.

[nursers]

See, the interesting thing is that everyone talks about how they are so thankful to have medical insurance. That in itself points to a very different mindset to down here. Only 40% of our population have private health insurance, and a lot of them don't actually use it when needing hospitalisation. Why? Because the public system in a lot of cases provides the best care.

 

Frankie, in the case of your twins, down here that wouldn't have cost you a cent, the government would have covered the lot. And as stated before, our income taxes etc are no worse than the US. I have never understood the fundamental opposition to fully funded public health care by the general population....

[FrankieP]

Originally posted by nursers:

Frankie, in the case of your twins, down here that wouldn't have cost you a cent, the government would have covered the lot. And as stated before, our income taxes etc are no worse than the US. I have never understood the fundamental opposition to fully funded public health care by the general population....

nursers,

I recently found out that if you have twins, you don't get jack sh*t. But if it was 3 or more, you get government help and funding. So if anybody here wants or dream of multiple sets, go for three or more.