Common Non-Sense: Healthcare costs

[Frolicking Dinosaurs]

What type of cost do you mean? Cost to the patient? Or total cost of the patient's care? Or overall costs to policyholders and taxpayers to fund the healthcare needs of the oldest and sickest?

Cost could mean any number of things, and bad arguments abound in the healthcare debate because of overlooking the fact that "reasonable cost" to a given patient is not necessarily a reasonable cost of a procedure, or a reasonable cost to be incurred by others.

Overall costs. Every other first world country is able to insure 100% of their citizens for less overall expense per capita than the US is able to manage even though the US does not have everyone insured.

Check the links in post #6

 

[Neomalthusian]

Overall costs. Every other first world country is able to insure 100% of their citizens for less overall expense per capita than the US is able to manage even though the US does not have everyone insured.

Some aspect of the cost has to be strictly controlled. It's not insurance premiums that drive the statistics of our expensive care. It's simply the cost of the care itself. What pushes that back down? Capped wages of doctors/nurses/etc.? Capped prices of tests/procedures like Japan has? Refusing to cover some things that used to be covered?

It's not quite enough to say "if Iceland can do it we can too!" The actual mechanism that pulls the price of health care services down has to be delineated. What ends up controlling these prices?

E.g., what makes a $5,000 colonoscopy under the current system become a $2,500 colonoscopy under the proposed system?

 

[jambalaya]

Some aspect of the cost has to be strictly controlled. It's not insurance premiums that drive the statistics of our expensive care. It's simply the cost of the care itself. What pushes that back down? Capped wages of doctors/nurses/etc.? Capped prices of tests/procedures like Japan has? Refusing to cover some things that used to be covered?

It's not quite enough to say "if Iceland can do it we can too!" The actual mechanism that pulls the price of health care services down has to be delineated. What ends up controlling these prices?

E.g., what makes a $5,000 colonoscopy under the current system become a $2,500 colonoscopy under the proposed system?

Couldn't agree more. Everybody has to contribute including the healthcare industry.

 

[Occam's Razor]

Overall costs. Every other first world country is able to insure 100% of their citizens for less overall expense per capita than the US is able to manage even though the US does not have everyone insured.

Check the links in post #6

You're absolutely right... thought that's not really what this thread is about. The debate over how money is spent and how bureaucracy is shuffled has been beaten to death, and is not the root of the problem.

It's about chronic disease prevention. It's about personal responsibility for your health. It's about not burdening the public with paying for poor lifestyle choices.

80% of Chronic disease, that which costs the mostest for the longest, is preventable. Some are even reverse-able by simply changing diet. Among them are heart disease and diabetes.

So the question becomes, why are healthcare costs so much lower in other countries as a percentage of GDP?

It's no secret that there is a correlation between diet, weight, exercise and disease.

Chronic Disease Rates by Country....Obesity Rate

USA ......88% ............................. 78%
UK.........85%.............................. 75%
Brazil ....72% ..............................58%

CD Rates by Region.......................Obesity Rate

Europe.....86%.............................64%
Americas 78%.............................64%
S E Asia ..54%.............................22%
E Mediterranean 52%....................48%
Africa.......23%.............................30%

WHO | Region and country specific information sheets

Now, you might ask why South East Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean regions have such a disparity in obesity rates while the CD rates remain the same... factors such as disease prevention programs, how protein dense the diet is and how much meat is in the diet as opposed to whole raw plant based diets.

While your point is right on and it is a debate that needs to continue, as well as rooting out the industry and individual abuse of the system, regardless of who the payer is... but this is more about reducing the need for long term chronic disease care by simply making informed, responsible diet and exercise lifestyle choices.

Nothing costs us more than long term care for chronic disease. Nothing is more preventable.

 

[Turin]

Our countries finances are a wreck. We are literally bankrupt many times over. Cuts will have to be made, it's just that simple. Health care entitlements are one place where we are going to have to make some cuts and maybe some sacrifices to the general welfare.

The blame can be found everywhere, from our politicians, bureaucracy, skyrocketing health care services, lack of corporate ethics in pursuit of profit... everywhere but... us. We are the victims.

Or are we? What would you sacrifice to restore this country? Would you send your children (or someone else's) to war? As in WWII, would you go without nylons, rubber, copper, steel? What about your food? Would you be willing to ration?

Why we are the problem, not the victims...

We are seeing an explosion of chronic disease in this country. Long term care and lives dependent on medications are very expensive. And while some of this is do to genetics, more than three quarters of it is due to lifestyle choices and diet.



What if chronic disease didn't have to be chronic in six people out of ten? With simple lifestyle changes, this could be achieved. However, that would create a loss of over sixty percent of a very lucrative market, long term healthcare. From pharmaceutical companies to the at home oxygen and mobility scooter sellers, these are the voices that hold influence over our representation on these matters.

Another place this would be lost is in the food supplier market. It would require either a shift away from corporate foods and more to organic farmers and local produce. It would also mean a drastic cut in dairy and meat industries.

Petro-chemical industries would also see a hit as we begin to realize that chemicals used at any stage in the food chain finds it's way into us.

And again, billion dollar sales of pharmaceuticals would be halved. Things people take and accept as a normal part of aging in America... from vitamins and supplements to statins, blood thinners and blood pressure meds.

All of these forces hold far more sway and influence over policy and information given to the public than those that simply have an interest in health for the sake of health.

While you may indeed have a genetic predisposition to certain diseases, often they are not activated or encouraged to grow out of control unless modifiable risk factors are ignored.

For more information on this, I encourage everyone to watch "Forks over Knives", a documentary on the clear and age old link between diet and disease.

Another fact filled yet dry documentary/lecture http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNCGkprGW_o

If we want to cut Health Care costs in this country, stop accepting what is sold to you as healthy... it's not. We could cut chronic disease in this country in half in just a few years.... And it's on the individual to do so. So the next time you hear some fat-ass partisan who tells you they won't be told what they should eat, what their children should eat, and then shrill about healthcare costs and entitlements, let them know you don't appreciate having to pay for their lifestyle choices in their retirement years...

Outstanding treatise!